Cupid

"You ever watch Fame? You know what I have in common with Bruno, Leroy and Coco? I'm going to live forever. What about you? You going to live forever? See, it would saturate my pleasure gland to rip your skin off and make ponchos for the kids. So keep your paws off my shrink here, because I'm a frustrated taxidermist and I'd love to go deep on you. We on the same team, butter bean?" -Cupid, Roman god of love

Back in 1998 Rob Thomas got his first TV show creation picked up, long before Veronica Mars, his writing on Dawson's Creek or anything else TV related. The show was about a man claiming to be 'Cupid', the Roman god of love, sent to earth as punishment, having to get hundred couples together without his trusted magical bow and arrows. Thrown in jail and skipped to a psychiatric hospital thanks to telling his story, he's faced with the psychiatrist, 'Dr. Claire Allen', who's assigned his case. He eventually fakes getting over being 'Cupid' and is released in her care, but immediately after released admits to her he's sticking to his cause of getting hundred couples together. Not only together casually or sexually or anything like that, as only 'true love in the eye of the gods' count towards his tally.

Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall was cast as the leading duo in question, and their chemistry and abilities are undeniable. Both very much needed to pull off this kind of show. While 'Dr. Allen' works to figure out who this delusional 'Cupid' really is, our 'Cupid' works hard on getting couples together.

Paula Marshall as 'Dr.Claire Allen' and Jeremy Piven as 'Cupid'/'Trevor Hale'

The chemistry between our leading duo is a huge part of why this show worked so well. With two opposite views on matchmaking, as 'Cupid' was aiming for fire and 'Claire' for commonality, there's always something to disagree or argue about. Their relationship is evolving throughout the show, and to me this duo ranks quite high up there amongst TV show duos of all time.

The writing shows several signs of typical Rob Thomas thing to come in later works. His pop cultural as well as highbrow references, the dynamic banter and the general feel of the dialogues are all very similar to what I've come to love later in Veronica Mars, a show I've never made any attempts to hide my love for. Unfortunately the directions shown throughout the season, 14-15 episodes, Cupid got, also proved Thomas' lacked TV experience and good advise on this show.

I hated the 'Champ' character. He got way to much airtime, and was almost less important than 'Ms.Dent' in the earlier mentioned Veronica Mars were he did the same mistake. In Cupid the actor obviously had a lot longer contract than he should have had, as it had to be easy to spot for the writers they had very little useful to write him into.

There's a couple of other wrong directions chosen, but avoiding spoilers I'm not going to mention them here. And I'm looking to avoid spoilers, because I really recommend checking out the episodes made of this show. It's lighthearted and heartwarming at the same time, it's witty, the leading duo is great in every way and there's a lot of good guest stars attempted to be coupled up during the episodes. With this leading duo cast and a few changes, this show could really have become something amazing. Last year a remake was indeed launched as there was obvious more people than me spotting its potential, but the remake had other issues which I'll get back to in its review later.

NewsRadio

"No. No, I'm at the station right now. Yeah. No, then I got to go to the factory, then I got to go to the building site. Huh? No, that's just for fun. I like to watch the big trucks."
-Jimmy James, owner of radio station WNYX and eccentric billionaire

NewsRadio main cast

NewsRadio starts out kind of slow and out of focus, much like many other half hour comedies. Anyhoo. It doesn't take many episodes to realize they are something different. The main reason they stand out is because they don't always go after the cheap laughs. They trust their audience to see the development in characters and actively seeks out to make us laugh thanks to those changes over time and those understandings of the characters.

NewsRadio is made with love. An ensemble cast obviously enjoying them self while working on it, great characters molded with the actors and the ensemble in mind and with very good scripts as a platform. My only regret is nobody knew to say "Enough is enough.With Phil gone we shouldn't make the fifth season. Let's do a double episode to honor him and wrap up these characters, and then let the show live on in memory along with Phil."

In memory

Phil Hartman

(September 24, 1948 - May 28, 1998)

Rest In Peace

Better shows than NewsRadio have run too many seasons, the final season of Coupling springs to mind, but few if any have as good an excuse as NewsRadio to why it went downhill. The tragic murder of Phil Hartman May 28, 1998, only 16 days after the airing of the fourth season finale of the show, in reality killed the show as well. They tried moving on without the character of Bill McNeil, and their first episode of the fifth season was a moving tribute. How often they had to stop shooting that episode because the cast broke down in tears is something no-one kept count on, but there's no doubt the loss of their colleague and friend affected the cast in ways easily seen on the screen especially in that episode.

If you've never seen the entire NewsRadio I'll give you my advice. Watch only the first episode of the fifth season, and call it quits. The 21 episodes after that one doesn't hold the same quality, even if it's funny enough every so often. The problem is they forgot a couple of important notes on the characters we'd grown to love, they never managed to work them self past the loss of Phil/Bill and in the end they never got an ending the audience can live happily after with the knowledge of.

Dave Foley and Maura Tierney as Dave Nelson and Lisa Miller

The fifth season character of Max Lewis probably didn't stand a chance anyway they played it, but to me Jon Lovitz isn't especially funny either. I didn't even enjoy his two guest appearances in different parts during the first four seasons. Then Max Lewis kept annoying me the entire final season, which obviously is difficult to get past reviewing it.

I got to remind myself to fairly review the show as it was, but the fact is to me, as a TV lover, I feel you should take the time and acknowledge Hartman despite of the biggest reason NewsRadio was so good; It's an ensemble cast.

To me the roles of Dave Foley as Dave Nelson, Phil Hartman as Bill McNeil, Maura Tierney as Lisa Miller and Stephen Root as Jimmy James is the four walls elevating it to the show it was, but Joe Rogan, Vicky Lewis, Andy Dick and Khandi Alexander probably had the same spot with others as some of those four had with me, and even with me they all had important roles in balancing the ensemble. They spent four seasons airing quality comedy, without ever escaping the treat of cancellation. They had Seinfeld and Friends taking all the glory in those days, but NewsRadio is a well kept secret as one of the 90s classic comedies. Maybe they even was a little ahead of its time. The fact remains they didn't ever get as much praise as they deserved, but it's never to late to catch up with golden shows just because they've stopped airing. NewsRadio is four season+one episode of high quality comedy. Enjoy.