There are not many successful female stand-up comedians and I never understood why so many of them are... well not funny. Ellen is a very funny woman and her show "Ellen" was of course based on her stand-up act. Maybe she's funny because of her rapid-fire line delivery or the way she recites her lines with a kind of nervous insecurity. Basically, she is the whole show here because the supporting characters don't really add much. In the first season there were two other female characters named Holly and Anita (played by perennial recurring character Maggie Wheeler) but they were too normal. They basically just reacted to Ellen. Adam, played by Arye Gross, was a whiny windbag and remained so his entire run.
Things improved with the addition of Joely Fisher who is actually quite funny too (I can't believe she didn't have a bigger role in The Mask"). She was more of an equal to Ellen and let's not forget she is totally hot. Then the Adam character was dropped in favor of Ellen's reprehensible cousin, Spence (well played by Jeremy Piven). If you saw him in the movie "Lucas" you could say that this is the character as a grownup. The really annoying addition was Clea Lewis as Audrey, the spoiled socialite. She is such an easy target for ridicule that it's amazing that Ellen puts up with her.
There has been a lot of writing about the "Coming Out" episode, especially among the other commentators. Luckily, I haven't seen those episodes that followed it, so I will not comment on that. I will say that whether she did or did not come out, I always had a suspicion that she was in fact gay from the first time i saw the show and it didn't really change my opinion of her or the show. But sadly, show business is a fickle business and few has enough courage to fight controversy. Still, it's funny that a show like Will and Grace was so successful if gays are ill seen in show business.
(To be continued on The Ellen Show commentary)
Things improved with the addition of Joely Fisher who is actually quite funny too (I can't believe she didn't have a bigger role in The Mask"). She was more of an equal to Ellen and let's not forget she is totally hot. Then the Adam character was dropped in favor of Ellen's reprehensible cousin, Spence (well played by Jeremy Piven). If you saw him in the movie "Lucas" you could say that this is the character as a grownup. The really annoying addition was Clea Lewis as Audrey, the spoiled socialite. She is such an easy target for ridicule that it's amazing that Ellen puts up with her.
There has been a lot of writing about the "Coming Out" episode, especially among the other commentators. Luckily, I haven't seen those episodes that followed it, so I will not comment on that. I will say that whether she did or did not come out, I always had a suspicion that she was in fact gay from the first time i saw the show and it didn't really change my opinion of her or the show. But sadly, show business is a fickle business and few has enough courage to fight controversy. Still, it's funny that a show like Will and Grace was so successful if gays are ill seen in show business.
(To be continued on The Ellen Show commentary)