Matt Hough submitted a new blog post
Life with Lucy: The Complete Series DVD Review
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.
Life with Lucy: The Complete Series DVD Review
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.
I agree with your assessment, but there is one episode I like, "Love Among the Two-by-Fours". Peter Graves portrays an ex of Lucy's, and they rekindle their romance. It is the most adult of the episodes, and I think if the series had focused more on aging and family issues, kind of like Golden Girls did, it would have been a better show. There is a nice mother and daughter moment that I find touching. And the episode ends with a low-key Lucy-style gag that is not too over the top, like in some of the other episodes.
Too often, they tried to redo the zany antics of Lucy and Mr. Mooney, that just are not funny, both with a more sophisticated audience and, for me, it was alarming to see a grandmother trying to deal with an out of control washing machine, etc. But I will pick this up as I would like a higher quality version that what I have from my VHS tapes from the time (and I don't have all the episodes).
**EDIT**
Wow... just checked Amazon. This 13 episode, 2 disc, series has a far too expensive $35 pre order price! Is this a BOD? It *is* from CBS who seems to be doing this more and more with older/stalled series.
Or rather *were* funny the first time but not the 3rd/4th/etc.
Yes, I meant to mention in the review that you can catch Lucy referring to cue cards if you watch her closely. I mean, she was hardly the first to do that, but it does rob her of any spontaneity in her performance.“Here’s Lucy” was not a particularly good series, so to bring back Gale Gordon and some of the creative team from that show 12 years later had disaster written all over it. The constant antagonism between Lucy and Gale Gordon’s characters had been played out years earlier. Plus, Lucille Ball was no longer the performer she once was. She was completely relying on cue cards by that time, and her gravelly, low-pitched voice had none of the inflections that helped make her line deliveries on her first series so funny.
Yes, I meant to mention in the review that you can catch Lucy referring to cue cards if you watch her closely. I mean, she was hardly the first to do that, but it does rob her of any spontaneity in her performance.
Every series after I Love Lucy feels like little more than a minor reworking of that series. She reused scripts, skits, and kept the same actors in similar roles. I saw that at age 7 with The Lucy Show which also suffered from younger actors with poor delivery and/or timing (although at the time I didn't know that's what I was seeing - I just new it didn't feel "right" and lots of jokes/skits were repeated and repeated and repeated). It was more pronounced with Here's Lucy plus the addition of her kids, who for the most part couldn't act well - basically delivery and/or timing by most involved, Lucy included, was frequently "off." That's something that seems to plague all her post ILL shows.“Here’s Lucy” was not a particularly good series, so to bring back Gale Gordon and some of the creative team from that show 12 years later had disaster written all over it. The constant antagonism between Lucy and Gale Gordon’s characters had been played out years earlier. Plus, Lucille Ball was no longer the performer she once was. She was completely relying on cue cards by that time, and her gravelly, low-pitched voice had none of the inflections that helped make her line deliveries on her first series so funny.
She kept repeating that formula seemingly hoping that lightning would strike again. It never did.