Men of a Certain Age, "Back in the S--t": Talking to Mike Royce

In this morning's column, I spoke with "Men of a Certain Age" co-creator Mike Royce about the genesis of the show, its future prospects, and why people underestimated Ray Romano's acting talents before they saw him on this gem of the show.

In lieu of a review of the first season finale - which I felt went for a bit more closure than the show usually likes to deal with, but which Royce argues below may not be as neat and tidy as it seems - after the jump I have a full transcript of our interview. Feel free to talk about it, or the finale (the guys on their walk was the season highlight for Scott Bakula), or the season in general.

The transcript coming up just as soon as I Google the word "happy"...

(We began our conversation with Royce mentioning that he had listened to the "MoaCA" segment of last week's Firewall & Iceberg podcast.)

Your compatriot was remarking that it should be a 30-minute HBO show, and that's exactly how it started. It was a long development. We started writing it ourselves, and then HBO made a deal, and then it got caught up in all the (executive) transition there. They passed on it but were nice enough to let us shop it around. Once we were going to do that and we realized we'd be going to basic cable, there would be commercials, we realized we had a 40-minute pilot, so we asked ourselves, "Are we going to go back to 22-minutes? Really?" I think what actaully gets in people's way is not that it's too thin, but that the commercials are a pain in everybody's ass. For this show in particular, we don't have a lot of cliffhanger act breaks.

This is not exactly "The Shield" in that respect.

No.

So while we're on the subject of the show's development, how did it start? Were you and Ray looking to do a project together, or was this like the "Raymond" writers room where you were talking about your lives and then the story idea came.

The last one, basically. We started getting together becaue I was waiting for "Lucky Louie" to get picked up, and he was in between stuff. We got together to write a movie or something, and as we got together, we were both at this point in our lives, all we started talking about was this. All this stuff in our heads about where we were at this phase we seem to be going through. It came out in a bunch of personal stories, stories of other people's lives. Raymond was really taking stories from our lives, and working from there. This just felt natural to say, "Let's do something with this. If you see this in movies or on television, it's usually in a cartoony way."

Well, then can you talk about how you've worked to try to deal with this subject in a non-cartoony way while working in some humor?

When we wrote the pilot, we were allergic to trying to do anything that felt in any way like we were pushing the comedy, and we were trying very hard to make sure every moment felt real - I hate that, it's sort of a weird word - but we didn't want these to be goofy characters. We erred on the side of not-funny in writing the pilot, and what we found out in the shooting of it was that we could be funny. We got more comfortable with our style of what could be funny. When the guys banter, we never want it to feel like they're bantering, we wanted to get their voices better and also real. Even the possum thing in the pilot went from being a huge part, which may somehow make its way to the DVD. We had, like, 15 minutes. In the original pilot that we wrote - to TNT's credit, they asked us to shoot an alternate to this - the possum crawls off and goes into the woods and they walk into the woods to look for it because Joe can't let it go. They find it's wounded and not dead and they have this whole thing where they can't decide what to do, and they get their courage up to put it out of its misery, but then they leave it there. We found we were caught between two basic horrible situations: killing something on screen like that didn't feel right, but neither did walking away from a dying thing. It never struck the tone we were going for. It's funny, it's blackly humorous. The reason we cut so much out is that it didn't come across the way we thought in the writing.

So was there a point in the writing of the early episodes where you felt like you really captured the tone you were going for?

One thing we were very pleased in was the diner scene in the pilot where they're talking about Sisyphus. We told them to loosen up, don't depart too much from the script, but they could go off on tangents and make it feel conversational. We did two takes that way, and if you look at the word-for-word thing, it's pretty much what's in the script, but now it's, "I believe they're freinds." It's not, "I'm delivering the single guy point of view" and "I deliver the married guy's point of view," even though that's what they're doing. That style we've maintained, we're not like "Friday Night Lights" where they throw out the script sometimes, and that's brilliant. We don't go quite that far, but we're not, "It says 'the' here, and you said 'a.'" These three characters are really archetypes, and wanted to use that and not make them feel like stereotypes. That approach has made all the humor feel like we're not pushing it. People are expecting a different kind of show, it's not going to be a laugh riot, though the date show had more humorous moments than most. That was a good indication of how far we can take things.

Years ago, I visited with you and the other "Raymond" writers for a feature story, and Lew (Schneider, who's also a writer here) talked about how Ray Romano is much more neurotic than Ray Barone. Is that where Joe's anxiety came from?

In way that's true. But that's also us overstating things to be funny to you. (Ray) is definitely a dog with a bone when it comes to certain obsessions and neuroses. He'll say he's very neurotic and I guess technically he is, but he's not "Bored to Death" or Woody Allen. He's not a walking mass of tics, but he can get a thought in his head and have a very hard time getting it out. We've had a very good time with that on the show and will continue to do so.

Well, I knew from watching a lot of "Raymond" that Ray could be a very good actor when called on to do so, but one of the most frequent reactions I get when I write about this show is, "I can't believe that he's this good."

I think he unfairly gets put in the category of stand-ups who did sitcoms. Seinfeld never gave a s--t if he was a good actor. I don't want to say he didn't try, but he owned the fact that he was a little stiff and wasn't going to try to do things. I think Ray somehow gets lumped in with him. A large part of what made "Raymond" work was the way he would take lines and be a little off-kilter with them. In a four-camera sitcom, that's a little hard to tell, it feels like verybody's shouting. But within the context of other four-camera sitcoms, especially back in 1996, why "Raymond" premiered, there was a subtlety there that he brought to it.

I had an unfair advantage. We all knew, anybody who worked on "Raymond" knew he had that capability, but I had an even earlier experience. When we were both stand-ups in New York, I went to see him in an acting class, and he did a hybrid scene where he started out doing stand-up and talked about this thing that went into the pilot of "Raymond" about his father cracking the code to his answering machine and listening to the messages. And then he started talking about it in a more personal way. It was frustrating him, and his wife was upset, and he wanted to tell his father off. He wished his father was there right now, and he turned the chair around like he was talking to his father. He did this whole thing like he was talking to his father, and it was like, 'Whoa.' It was so heartfelt. I always had that in the back of my head. He is a really good actor. So it was less of a surprise to me.

But given everyone's expectations of who Ray is as a performer, was there ever any pressure, either when you were at HBO or here with TNT, to go in a broader comic direction because that's what people wanted from him?

We never really got that, and that's to TNT's credit. We came to them with the thing written, and other than the possum thing, they never got on us to change it. Once it was shot and they were deicding whether to pick it up, they came to us saying, "People are telling us this is a little bleak." They wanted to know the direction of the show. We always felt the pilot was bleak - albeit not as bleak as other people thought it was - but we wanted the pilot to put people in (the characters') mode. In any case, I think they just wanted to mae sure they weren't going to start dying off. I think we wanted to reassure them that this whole series is two steps forward, one step back. There will be all these moments of hope, and plenty of moments of bleakness, too

Well, it feels like in the finale the guys all take several steps forward. Like I said on the podcast, it felt a little like you and Ray had written a series finale just to hedge your bets in case you weren't renewed.

There was that aspect of, "If this is the last episode, we want it to have at least something to it, some sort of closure." But at the same time, we were setting things up for the second season. That's the way we viewed it as well.

The other thing is, we felt like these last two episodes were paying off a lot of stuff we'd been settign up. They're more plotty than we usually do - at a certain point things need to happen. So we just felt like those were the things that needed to happen after the stories we'd told so far. The situation between Owen and his father, there will never be a circumstance where they don't see each other. Doesn't mean he won't leave the dealership again; he's going to be working for his father now in a much worse capacity than ever. Terry's whole situation is going to be very fluid. Terry is somebody who's obviously searching. We've got a lot of interesting ideas about where he goes from here and whether acting is a part of that or not. And then Joe, with his gambling situation, we felt like that needed to come to a close right now. Next season is a whole different - anything you saw there, there's plenty of room there for many things to happen.

In terms of Joe and the gambling, Manfro reaches out that he wants to be friends even though Joe's allegedly quit. And while I don't want to lose Manfro, that seems like a situation that'd be very fraught for Joe.

We're thinking that's a good thing. We have a lot of ideas around that, too. But when I say, "a lot," they're pretty disparate. Part of what's interesting, Manfro we really enjoyed that character. We certainly, if possible, want to see him again, but we want it to be believable.

I like how you played things down the middle with Manfro, in that he likes Joe, but only to a point, and not to a point where he'd ever let Joe off the hook on a debt.

Manfro is his own lonely hearts. In Joe, he has a friend that he doesn't have in any of his other clients. He has a guy to whom he feels a weird kinship, and Joe feels the same way about Manfro. Even in a way he doesn't connect with his friends, he connects with Manfro, he tells Manfro certain things that he doesn't tell Owen and Terry. It's an odd relationship

In the finale, we see Owen kicking ass and taking names at the rival dealership, and his father suggests it's just Owen succeeding through spite. It's been unclear throughout the season whether Owen is a bad salesman just because he's lazy, or because being under his father's thumb all these years has made him that way. How do you see it?

I would say all of those things. There's a moment with Owen we had to cut from the pilot, and I miss it. When he's selling the two old people who are complaining and Marcus comes over and takes over the sale - where that scene started in the original cut, it's just him daydreaming and the old people are talking and he doesn't quite tune in for a few seconds. For the same reason that we had him falling asleep at his desk. It's that he's been at this job for a long time and it isn't his dream job. He doesn't hate it so much, but it's not where he thought he'd be. The only thing keeping him there is that, "Some day, I'm going to be the boss." He doesn't have a fire for that particular job. Hopefully, what we covered in the finale, all those things are true. He has the ability, but he was being lazy. So his father's totally right, a lot of people said after the pilot, 'He's a lazy f--k.' His father's right, but also Owen's right.

And Andre is an actor who doesn't have a lot of vanity. He's there with his shirt off whenever and wherever you need him to be.

I have to hand it to him. He came in raring to go in the pilot. When we filmed the bedroom scene, he said, "I should be in my tightie-whities." The truth is, when he was first mentioned to us, we just said, 'No.' The notion of Andre Braugher was this commading presece, but when we met him, I'm saying it nicely, he'd filled out a lot. And if he wants to do it, you can't deny, acting-wise, that he can do it. The combination of those two things made us go okay. Who are we to say no to this guy? He proposed doing that, we wanted him doing that. We wanted to make sure, in a way, it really worked in the show. (The audience) would see a guy they knew as being thinner and younger being a little bit heavier and older. And in the "Mind's Eye" show where he's sitting there naked for a long time, we said, "We kind of need you with your shirt off here, because we have a bunch of fat guy jokes coming up." He said sure. After it aired, he was watching the show with his wife, and she said, "That's a lot of man." Since then, he has lost a lot of weight.

Well, you introduced that storyline earlier this season where Owen resolves to eat better. And I've interviewed Braugher over meals in the past, and he ate as badly as I do. So how do you deal with him either not losing weight if you had a story where Owen's getting thinner, or if Andre really does take a lot of weight off when you weren't planning for that?

I don't think we're at the point yet where we would ask him to lose weight, and I also don't think we're at the point where he's going to come in forty pounds lighter or heavier. We just picture the character the way he eats in real life. He's always going to have those urges, there's always going to be temptation, and he's not necessarily going to be disciplined about it. Owen promised his son, but there's going to be some stumbles. When we got picked up, I called him and he was doing Shakespeare in the Park, he was walking through Central Park. He said, "Great, great. I gotta go. I just want to let you know: I'm staying fat, and I'm staying funny."

With him, it's sort of the opposite of Ray, where people don't think of him as someone who's funny, but when "Homicide" asked him to deliver a joke, he could do it well.

When we had people in reading, and he was nice enough to read also, we had a lot of really funny guys, and good actors, but it just never felt like they were really friends. He didn't go for the joke at all, but it felt real and the moments that were scripted to be funny, he made funny. He's really become quite the comedy savant.

And Scott has his feet in both worlds, since he's done a lot of comedy and drama.

And I have to give him a lot of credit, too. I think he was somewhat underserved in the first few episodes, and his stories got a lot more intersting as they went along. We cut a couple of very good scenes for him from the pilot. He took a leap of faith with us, that we were going to cut these great scenes for the good of the series, and he has really delivered, when he 's supposed to be funny and supposed to be dramatic. He made it really something real, I love that scene in the second episode where he confronts the guy in the doorway about almost running him over, and he's "What am I doing here?'"

And he worked well with Carla Gallo.

She was great, and she really did a great job in the whole series. That's another person where, in the beginning, there wasn't much there for her to do, and I really liked their relationship as it went along. I think it became very sincere and not a cliche of older guy/younger woman.

After last week's episode ended with her mad at him about the surfing thing, I said it was his fault for not acknowledging that he missed the lesson, but a lot of my readers felt that since she was the one who pushed him to do the movie, she had no right to be mad.

We had some discussion, but we ultimately fell where you were. But we had done a whole show about her telling him, "If we're going to be together…" and she calls him on the carpet about being on time. This was a bigger line that he was taking on himself: he tells her, "No, I'm going to do it," and she tells him don't do it unless you're going to, and he insists on it, and then forgets about it. Who knows if we're going to see her again? This could be temporary. It's final for right now. He made such a big deal of, "I'm announcing that we are taking this relationship to the next level," he pulls her close, he plunged in. And then, suddenly, it's like nothing happened. He's distracted, has a lot going on, and she, I think, just wished there was some acknowledgment. If he had just said, 'Oh, god, the surfing!," she would have been fine with it.

So how do you maintain a show where the stories and the stakes are deliberately so small?

This is just not going to be one of these shows that goes for 10 years, whether the ratings hold up or not. I think we view the show like they're in this phase of life. It began with the pilot, and the series finale is going to be when they get to some other side with it. Midlife is like this weird second teenager-hood where your brain is operating on levels you're not familiar with, you're making some bad decisions and changing your life in ways that maybe isn't wise. Things, at a certain point, settle down from that. We think that's the arc of the series. I don't think that's going to take 200 episodes.

But given that you don't do big cliffhanger act breaks and there aren't a ton of promotable moments, was TNT ever worried about the commercial viability of it?

The reviews have been pretty good, and that reassured them. It's also the first show that they have produced as a studio. So I think they're kind of proud of it, they're certainly not shy about giving us notes. I have to give them a huge amount of credit. They never made us do anything. They will give us notes but always defer to us, and I know that is not the case on many other programs.

Alan Sepinwall may be reached at asepinwall@starledger.com Click here to read the full post

'Men of a Certain Age' finishes strong first season: Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I talk to "Men of a Certain Age" co-creator Mike Royce about how the first season went, why people underestimated Ray Romano as an actor, etc. We talked for a long time about what's quickly become one of my favorite shows, and I'm going to have a full interview transcript posted tonight after the season one finale airs.

And speaking of that finale, if you watch the show on regular TV (as opposed to downloading or other options), check the note at the end of the column for why you want to be sure to watch or record tonight's 10 o'clock version and not any later ones. Click here to read the full post

Men of a Certain Age, "How to Be an All-Star": Winner, winner, chicken dinner

A review of the penultimate "Men of a Certain Age" of season one coming up just as soon as I get a tool crock...

"There's a lot of stuff happening for all of us." -Owen

"Men of a Certain Age" is not a plot-driven show, and has been content to mostly run in place with the guys over the first eight episodes. But with this first season coming to a close, things finally start happening, as each guy is forced to face the limitations of who they are: Owen's not getting the dealership, even with his father stepping down; two less-talented old friends of Terry's are now vastly more successful than he is; and Joe's gambling problem has gotten so bad that he bets 25 grand with Manfro in hopes of winning a bid on a house.

Yet for Terry and Joe, their long dark nights of the soul pass fairly quickly - for now. Joe walks out on a Gamblers Anonymous meeting - he's not ready to accept his problem just yet - and discovers that he won his big bet, and in turn gets the house. And the pity job Terry's friends give him leads to an opportunity to join their middle-aged entourage.

The good luck's not going to last, that's for sure. Winning that bet got Joe the house, but it also gave him 25,000 reasons to avoid confronting his gambling problem again anytime soon. (Even Manfro looked worried for him, not just because he wasn't crazy about having to hurt Joe if he couldn't pay up, but because he does like Joe in a weird way and knows how a big bet like that, win or lose, is only going to accelerate Joe's degeneracy.) Even Dory's understandable decision to back the hell away from him doesn't quite seem to be cutting through Joe's defenses, not when he has this nice house, and the image of his kids being happy in it, to fall back on.

And it's clear that Terry's just a flavor of the month for his ex-buddies, and that once their desire to party and make easy money conflicts with Terry's commitment to craft, he'll be back fixing clogged drains - only Annie should be gone because Terry once again flaked on a commitment to her (and didn't even remember/acknowledge that he was doing so, which might have made things okay).

Owen makes a big move of his own by walking away from the family-owned, Marcus-run dealership for a nearby Chevy rival, but it's less clear whether he's in denial like the other two or making the smart, independent choice. This will hurt his already lousy relationship with Owen Sr. (unless Sr's impressed to see Jr. finally setting out on his own), and there's no telling whether he'll do okay at another dealership. Was his dad covering for his shortcomings all these years, or holding Owen back?

Regardless of what happens in the finale, this was another extremely strong showcase for all three leading men, particularly in their moments of realization: Ray Romano as Joe flipped out in his hotel room over what he'd done, Andre Braugher as Owen went from being happy his dad was stepping down to crushed that Marcus would be running things, Scott Bakula as Terry sat through the mortifying (but ultimately rewarding) after-party chit-chat with Bobby and Rusty.

Tim Goodman wrote a column today calling this "The most surprising series on television right now." I don't know that I've been quite that surprised by it, as I knew going in that Braugher and Bakula were tremendous, and that Romano had showed much stronger dramatic chops than most people had noticed on "Everybody Loves Raymond." But if I'm not surprised by how good the show has been, I am a little by how attached I've grown to Joe and Owen and Terry over these past nine episodes, and by how reluctant I am to pop in my screener of the season finale, knowing that it'll be the last hour I get to spend with the guys for a while.

Early on in the development of this show, word on the street was that it was going to be a male, slightly older "Sex and the City." And though the guys get together for breakfast all the time - and even spent the opener of this one gauging the frequency of their respective sex lives - it's gone a whole lot deeper than that. It's funny, but the comedy often comes from a place of melancholy or despair, like the car salesmen all striking out with the kid with the phone until Owen Sr. pushed himself too far, or Joe celebrating his victory while the Gamblers Anonymous people all stare at his car.

Really good show. Looking forward to the finale.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Men of a Certain Age, "You Gonna Do That The Rest of Your Life?": Golf in the face of death

A review of last night's "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I like to say "the journey"...

"Everyone's great under no pressure, but when you have a little pressure, only some people are great." -Joe

For an episode that opened with a death (albeit the death of a character we'd never heard of before) and had both Joe and Owen contemplating their own mortality, this one felt oddly lightweight. Not that "Men of a Certain Age" is ever that heavy of a show, but there's usually something more satisfying in the shaggy dog-ness of it all than I got last night.

A lot of that insubstantial feeling came from the Terry story. All three main characters have their inner conflicts that the show repeats over and over - Joe struggles with his anxiety, Owen is over-burdened and eats too much, Terry won't grow up - but Terry's always feels the most repetitive, in part because the character was the most familiar to begin with. Scott Bakula's fine, but there's often a predictability to the Terry plots (with occasional exceptions like last week's Big Brother story) that there isn't with the other two guys, and I saw every beat of this one coming, down to Terry using his previously-established knowledge of electrical work to start fixing things around the complex.

(It was fun, however, to watch the other characters react to Terry's usual obliviousness. Carla Gallo is doing some really interesting work as Annie, who knows exactly who and what Terry is and will overlook that, but only to a point she hasn't reached yet.)

Owen's story had some nice moments, as the running gag about his over-eating turned serious (though still offered us comedy like the sound of Andre Braugher saying "jicama" over and over), but like the story with Joe's dad last week, the resolution seemed a little too easy. The difference, of course, is that Braugher's a regular castmember and Robert Loggia isn't. So it's entirely possible we'll see Owen struggle and backslide and sneak some Fiddle Faddle in later episodes. But if this is it, too easy.

The episode's highlight, unsurprisingly, was the return of the Joe & Manfro comedy team (this time written by another "Everybody Loves Raymond" alum, Lew Schneider). I like that there's always this unsettling edge about how the two of them interact. Manfro seems like a goofball, but Joe's always afraid the guy could hurt him. Here, though, Manfro may have given him the inspiration to give the senior tour a try, and I liked the ambiguity of the final scene as compared to how Owen's story resolved. Joe seems determined to stay there all night until he hits 10 in a row, but it's also clear that he's going to be lucky to hit that many consecutively. And after spending so many weeks watching Joe be timid and uncomfortable(*), it was a pleasure to see him kicking ass and taking names on the back nine at the golf course.

(*) Speaking of which, I was glad to have Sarah Clarke back as Dory, but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with that character. Between the way Joe behaved on their first date in "Go with the Flow" and his creepy, morbid attitude at Terry's housewarming, I'm wondering why this woman hasn't backed away, very carefully.

No new show next week, with the season's penultimate episode airing on Feb. 15. It's a short season (in this economy, a lot of cable shows seem to be downsizing from 13 episodes to 10), but at least there's already a renewal in the bag so we know the next two won't be the last two.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Men of a Certain Age, "Father's Fraternity": What's got one thumb and can't act? This guy!

A review of tonight's "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I clash with the cumin...

"Everyone gets a turn, and mine's over. I'm okay with that." -Artie

One of the recurring themes of "Men of a Certain Age" is the fear that Joe, Owen and Terry have, to varying degrees, that their prime is over (probably long over), and that life will be all downhill from this certain age. In "Father's Fraternity," we meet Joe's father Artie(*), who's a man of an even older certain age, and who has a stronger belief in - and more supporting evidence about - his own obsolescence.

(*) Artie was, of course, played by Robert Loggia, who, despite a long and distinguished career - which included some time on "The Sopranos" - always makes me think of either this commercial or this "Family Guy" scene. I suppose it's a testimony to Loggia's gravity and coolness that the orange juice people would think of him for such a weird ad.

And, of course, we see Artie in contrast to a story that's heavy on Owen Sr. One father has given up on his vitality, while the other will let you pry it from his cold, dead fingers. And that's had mixed results for the two adult sons. Joe, who never had a father standing in his way, runs his own business, but lost his grip on his family, and Artie's retreat from the world gives him one more thing to be anxious about. Owen, meanwhile, is stuck in a state of perpetual post-adolescence, just waiting for the old man to let him take over the dealership, but it's unclear whether he'd be ready if Owen Sr. walked away, or if he only seems inept half the time because he knows he's stuck as a lackey.

And in the strongest Terry story to date, we get a sense that a lack of any kind of male role model has led him to his own empty life, which makes him undesirable even as a Big Brother two days a week. A lot of this season has been about Terry getting smacked in the face with how the rest of the world sees him, and this was a particularly hard smack. (In contrast, Owen's son got off easy bonking his head on the doorway when Terry's attempt to show up the Big Brother administrator failed.)

If Scott Bakula got his best dramatic showcase of the series so far (albeit in the usual understated "MooCA" style), then the filming of the commercial was Andre Braugher's comic masterpiece. Because we know from his other roles what a gifted and charismatic talker Braugher can be, it's especially funny to watch him portray the many, many, many ways Owen could be terrible on camera. And after seeing the guy swallow one humiliation after another from his father, it was nice to see an episode where Owen Senior and Junior were able to come to an accord: Jr. agrees that his dad isn't that ashamed of him, and neither man wants Owen to have a starring role in the commercial, and the compromise (complete with the "scrappy" salesman poking his head into frame at the end) was a clever, funny touch.

If I had an issue with "Father's Fraternity"(**), it's that it felt like the Joe and Artie story wrapped up a little too neatly. Because the show works in a low key with low stakes, it's been able to get away with either small victories (Owen gets the permit, Terry chooses to not help his old flame cheat on her husband) or half-victories (Joe has to drive Albert to the golf tournament). Artie rediscovering his self-worth and sense of purpose by the end of the hour was too much, too soon. I know that a part-time job at a big box hardware store isn't that important in the larger scheme of things, but for him to go from the half-asleep zombie we met at the beginning of the episode(***) to the Feech La Manna-ish go-getter ready to fix his own damn sink at the end was abrupt. Our three leads have been taking baby steps all season, while Artie (admittedly a guest star whom the writers didn't have as much time to work with) practically leaped out of his lounger and into a new life.

(**) And by that, I mean an issue other than the way the episode liberally bent the laws of time and space so that Joe's "upstate" father could so easily come down to work at the party store, the Big Brother offices would be open on a Sunday morning, etc., etc. All shows have to mess around like this for storytelling purposes, and it doesn't really bug me, but it felt particularly noticeable in this episode for some reason.

(***) Just as a sidenote, I love how quick Joe's kids are to dive into their cell phones - and to not interact with the adults around them - whenever given the opportunity. Then again, as a dad of a young kid who will one day want a phone of her own, maybe I should be horrified.

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Men of a Certain Age, "Go with the Flow": Black-eyed Joe

A quick review of tonight's "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I see if they have a fitting room...

"Stop analyzing and obsessing. Just let yourself enjoy something." -Terry

I really wish I wasn't at press tour so I had time/energy for a longer review of "Go with the Flow," which was one of the early episodes I watched on a screener, and which is the one where I decided I was in with "Men of a Certain Age" for the long haul.

On the one hand, it's an atypical episode for the young series. Where previous installments focused evenly on the three guys, this is almost entirely Joe's episode, with Terry and Owen providing a running commentary (and getting occasional brief spotlight moments like Owen's wife calling him her big sexy bear). And the style is more overtly comic than before (though never at the expense of the show's level of reality), with both the date and the cyber-sex incident leading to some explosive bits of physical comedy: Joe throwing the money at Manfro, and especially Joe running away from Dory when the "I just want to look at you" advice backfired. My laptop nearly tumbled off my lap when he threw Dory off of him, sprang up from the couch and crashed into the lamp. It's not a shock to know that Ray Romano can do physical comedy, as he did plenty of that on "Raymond," but to see a moment like that pulled off in a more subdued, realistic setting, without feeling like it doesn't belong is impressive.

(Also impressive? Sarah Clarke as Dory. I really only know her as Nina Myers from "24," so she was a revelation as this intriguing, fun, sexy potential girlfriend for Joe. I want to see much more of her as the season goes along.)

And yet even with the slapstick, and the shaggy dog nature of the whole story, "Go with the Flow" never lost sight of those small, gap-filling moments this series does so well. Joe panics with Dory and potentially ruins everything, but then they have an honest conversation about it, and for once Joe's neuroses don't scare someone else away. It was another great, vulnerable, oddly charming moment from Romano.

Even the payoff to the cyber-sex subplot, while funny, felt small and real. This one was just a pleasure to watch, start to finish.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Men of a Certain Age, "Powerless": Going the distance

A review of last night's "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I lick all my fries...

TNT sent five of the first six "Men of a Certain Age" episodes out for review, omitting only "Powerless." Often, when a network skips over an episode in a screener package, it's because that one's a (relative) dud and they don't want it factored into early reviews. And for a while into "Powerless," it felt like that was exactly the reason TNT didn't send it out. In particular, this was the first time it felt like a Joe story dragged, and the moment where Joe tried to deflect his daughter's anger by telling her that Albert ate her fries was the first time a joke on the show felt uncomfortably close to something Ray Romano would have done on "Everybody Loves Raymond."(*)

(*) And I say this as someone who put "Raymond" on his list of the decade's best comedies, and who first noticed that Ray was becoming a good dramatic actor in some of his scenes on that show. But there was a tone and a level of reality to that show that's different from this one, and so some types of jokes don't easily translate.

But the Owen story carried things for a while. Outside of the usual brilliance of Andre Braugher (his sidewalk spaz-out while making a phone call to cut through the red tape was a thing of comic wonder), any man or woman of a certain age (that age being "adult") can relate to the hell that is institutional bureaucracy, and Owen's frustration at being trapped in this circumstance, followed by his joy at briefly escaping it, were captured on the show's usual loving small scale.

And Joe's story ultimately turned around, too, in the scene where he confronted Lucy's stalker ex. I thought that was a really nice piece of writing (and acting from Ray), as Joe found a way to both comfort and threaten the kid, and as it became clear that only some of what he was saying got through. Had Joe come across as an obvious font of wisdom - or had the kid gotten the "Rocky" reference - it would have felt fake, but instead it was the right level of insight and awkwardness.

Plus, I have to give points to Joe (and, I guess, the show) for recognizing that the best part of the "Rocky" score isn't "Gonna Fly Now" but "Going the Distance," which plays over the climax to the first Creed-Balboa fight, which still gives me chills every damn time I watch it.

Terry's stories still interest me less than the other two guys, but I liked Owen's explanation for why Terry is always late - and Terry suddenly understanding the point on his way to see Annie - and I liked how realistic Annie is about her relationship with "the old guy." She knows what Terry is, and isn't expecting to tame him. She just wants to be treated with a little respect for her time, and Carla Gallo plays well off of Scott Bakula.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Men of a Certain Age, "The New Guy": Big shirtless Ray

A quick review of tonight's "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I look at all our sexy cabbage...

I'm on vacation this week, and a little under the weather, so I don't have a lot of time and energy to spend on "The New Guy." Once again, I think Ray Romano and Andre Braugher are really bringing it, here depicting Joe so adrift that spending a night hanging with his bookie seems like a good idea and Owen struggling with the revelation that Joe's marriage was over much sooner than he had thought.

This wasn't one of the stronger Scott Bakula episodes, though, but I imagine I could watch weekly installments of The Joe & Manfro Show, so it's all good overall.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Men of a Certain Age, "Mind's Eye": Joe & The Fat Guy

A review of episode three of "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I pretend I'm the king of Croatia...

"Whatever I am... what if he's worse?" - Joe

If "Mind's Eye" had contained nothing but that wonderful David Simon Worlds Collide moment where Owen (aka Frank Pembleton from "Homicide") met the older customer (aka Stan Valchek from "The Wire") looking for The Fat Guy, it would still be my favorite episode of this young series so far(*).

(*) In the morning, you'll see my list of the best shows of 2009. At one point, it was going to be two separate lists of 10 - one for new shows, one for returning series - but I couldn't quite come up with 10 new shows I was totally happy with, while the returning shows list was getting overstuffed, so I combined it into one list of 20. But if this show had been on the air for even a few weeks longer in the year, I think it would have been a strong contender for a spot at the back of the hypothetical new shows list. Four just didn't feel like enough.

The show is always about the three guys facing the uncomfortable truths of their certain age, and those truths were particularly uncomfortable for them in "Mind's Eye": that Owen's job makes him (and others) miserable, that Joe's son has inherited the anxiety that makes Joe so unhappy, and that maybe Terry envies his settled-down friends more than he wants to admit.

The Owen story was the definite highlight of the three, allowing Andre Braugher to combine the shlubby everyman quality of his performance so far with a bit of cocky Pembleton flash. And who doesn't dream of a chance to reinvent their job so they only have to deal with the fun stuff (hugs, smiles, moving up the sales leaderboard) with none of the headaches (awkward negotiations, customers resenting you, pressure from the bosses)?

The only part I didn't quite understand - and, admittedly, I'm ignorant about how a sales commission job like this works - is why Owen's check for the month would have been that low. I get that he was making sales below market value, but his total sales were way up, and it wasn't like he was letting the dealership take a loss on any sale. Wouldn't the volume of sales compared to a normal Owen month lead to at least a comparable check, if not a slightly better one? Or does Owen's dad have the ability to give Owen a lousy check just to spite him for not playing by the dealership's rules?

While Owen's resentment of Terry would keep him from ever admitting it, he was playing a role as The Fat Guy, just as Terry winds up role-playing as the family man home-buyer, and Scott Bakula had fun playing off of guest star Cynthia Watros, and at showing Terry's dawning realization that the role would be a lot more fun if it were real.

And Ray Romano continues to do some really interesting, small dramatic work as Joe deals with the parental nightmare of having passed his worst qualities on to one of his kids. I liked that Joe's big speech in the parking lot didn't really fix anything - that we cut from what should be this big inspiring moment to Albert riding in the car with his dad (which no doubt will lead to more teasing from the other kids, and therefore more anxiety). It rang true, and it was funny at the same time it was sad.

Even though "The Closer" aired its last episode of '09 tonight, there's a new "Men of a Certain Age" next week, which I guess is TNT's way of seeing how the show can do without its flagship series as a lead-in.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Men of a Certain Age, "Let It Go": It's justice time!

I'm mostly off this week and trying to take things light, but I'm curious what people thought of "Men of a Certain" age episode two. Even though I like the show, I was surprised response was mostly positive last week, until I realized that to watch a show with that title you have to be at least somewhat predisposed to like a show with this subject matter.

Episode two did a nice job with all three leads, and in particular found a way to have its cake and eat it with the Scott Bakula storyline. I feel like the show gets stronger as it goes on, but this was a solid build on the pilot.

What did you guys think? Click here to read the full post

Men of a Certain Age, "Pilot": A crease too far

I reviewed TNT's "Men of a Certain Age" in this morning's column, so go read that if you haven't already, and then I have a few specific thoughts on the pilot coming up just as soon as I dick around with karma...

I wrote in the column about how strong Ray Romano's dramatic work on this show is, but there were plenty of nice, low-key comic moments, from Joe's deadpan, "Oh, no, they don't taste good" after Owen spit out the berries to Joe's self-justifying "It's the humane thing to do" as he keeps backing over (and over) the possum.

Andre Braugher has the heaviest storyline in the pilot, and I say that not just because of all the references to (and glimpses of) his extra pounds. If there's one thing we're used to from an Andre Braugher character, it's him as a man at the height of his powers, which Owen most definitely is not. Over-extended at home, not in remotely as good shape as his best friends, treated like crap by his dad - this is not the Braugher I'm accustomed to, outside of the period right after Frank Pembleton had his stroke. But he plays it wonderfully, as you might expect. The big scene, where Owen's dad calls him an embarrassment, has Braugher largely shot either in shadow or behind, but he only needs a little bit of daylight to show everything.

But if you watched "Homicide," you also know that Braugher can be very funny, and he bantered well with both of his co-stars, and also had a nice bit of physical comedy near the end where Owen hip-checked his way to a potential customer to show his dad some assertiveness.

Scott Bakula has the most predictable character, and the least to do in the pilot of the three leads, but he manages to somehow seem both relaxed and weary at the same time. Plus, his storyline brings in Carla Gallo as Terry's barista pal Annie. And as an "Undeclared" fan, I never object to more Carla Gallo.

Not a lot happens in the pilot, as it's mainly about establishing who these three guys are. But don't necessarily expect a ton of plot going forward. It's not that kind of show. I will say, though, that the series gets progressively better over the five episodes I've seen, as the characters get deeper, and as Romano and co-creator Mike Royce get more used to the format.

Some other points:

• The "Everybody Loves Raymond" connection goes beyond Romano and Royce to include Jon Manfrellotti, who played Ray Barone's buddy Gianni, and here plays Joe's possum-hating new bookie, Manfro. These two guys obviously work well together, and the Joe/Manfro relationship will be a good source of comedy (and surprising insight) in upcoming episodes.

• In terms of the crew at the dealership, don't get used to Ken Jeong, who obviously shot this pilot before he got cast on "Community" (and likely before "The Hangover" came out, because his quote would have shot way above basic cable drama bit player after that) and isn't in any of the other episodes. Do, on the other hand, get used to both Richard Gant as Owen's dad and Brian White (aka Tavon from "The Shield") as star salesman Marcus.

• Also get used to Michael Hitchcock (from all the Christopher Guest movies) as Dave, Terry's boss at his temp job.

• The F-word is the only one of George Carlin's words you can never say on television that you can't actually say on basic cable, which is why Owen and his wife toss around the awkward phrase "forty-mother-s--t-eight."

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

'Men of a Certain Age' review - Sepinwall on TV

In today's column, I review TNT's "Men of a Certain Age":

Ray Romano is a much better actor than you think.

Because he was a former stand-up comedian who starred in a sitcom ("Everybody Loves Raymond") where he shared a name and backstory with his character, it's easy to tag him as a Jerry Seinfeld type, a comic (barely) capable of playing himself.

But Romano won a deserved acting Emmy for "Raymond." He grew as a performer over the life of that series, got adept not just at delivering jokes, but physical comedy, reacting to his co-stars, and even the occasional serious moment.

I'm sure it's tempting to look at the cast of "Men of a Certain Age" — a new series Romano created with fellow "Raymond" writer Mike Royce about three friends in their late 40s — and say Romano has no business acting in a drama opposite Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula. But Romano will sneak up on you, and the show might, too.

You can read the full "Men of a Certain Age" review here. I'll have a short, separate post up tonight for after it airs. Based on the other critical reaction I've seen so far, I'm expecting this one to be divisive. Click here to read the full post