For the most part, I liked Megan Mullally. She was the long bright spot in an increasingly shrill and disappointing sitcom, and when the news came she'd be hosting her own talk show, I was a bit leery (the number of failed chat shows is staggering!) but thought she might have a shot since she was rather good as a fill-in host when David Letterman was out following surgery several years back. My partner and I watched the first few shows with some expectation and...well, we weren't terribly impressed. On my own, I caught a few more shows over the past few months, with the last chance being yesterday. I feel bad saying this but this show was simply not good, and as a host, neither was she, when it came down to it. The entire tone for the whole enterprise screamed "'Ellen' rip-off!" I know she has quite a number of supporters here at IMDb but I can't say I'm one of them, at least for her in context of this show. In the statement above, she's thanked for her "tireless commitment"; I'm sorry to say that we just didn't feel or see that commitment captured on screen, for she always seemed too self-conscious, faintly aloof, never quite fully connecting to guests or the studio audience. Maybe she was struggling to get past so many who were expecting "The Karen Walker Hour". Maybe she and/or the producers were hoping to emulate the feel-good sensation Ellen DeGeneres has been supplying for several years now. Either way, it just provided an odor of desperation from the get-go, a stench not helped by what was, ultimately, what did her in: the inability to establish her own voice, her own style. Yes, a show needs time to find its voice, but after 5 months of daily airing, shouldn't a show be on its way, if it's ever going to actually BE on its way?
In her defence, she didn't stand a chance: the character she portrayed on "W&G" was SO iconic that she's forever going to be stuck having to prove she ISN'T 'Karen Walker'. On stage, where she's had so much success over the past 2 decades, she won't be affected, but on TV, or on film? Like so many other actors who made a huge name for themselves in a 'second-banana' role, she's typecast, and it's going to take the public a long, long time - if ever - to want MEGAN and NOT 'Karen'.
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17 years ago
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funkie_sparkels
17 years ago
"Anyway, there is a silver lining to every cloud and in Megan's case I think this will now give her the chance to concentrate on what she does best - singing and acting"
Amen to that!
evian is naive spelled backwards
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pwhite-11
17 years ago
No wonder I never buy "Evian" !!
Actually, I seldom buy bottled water anyway. What a goof !
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stoicdystopia
17 years ago
What is helpful that in this effort - visible for its being such a failure - she does show that she is absolutely not Karen Walker. And, while she is not the best talk show host, she might be taken more seriously as an actress by the public and as a result be hired more.
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shea_825
17 years ago
while i think that she was a great talkshow host and it was only a failure because a) nbc didnt give it enough time, b) she was so phenomenal as karen that no one wanted anything else (except her true fans... myself included), and c) she would have done much better in a nighttime setting... i think that you're right to some extent and its proven by the fact that rumors of job offers have been all over the internet...
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jres687
17 years ago
Don't feel like reading bronty's wall of text, but..
She was the long bright spot in an increasingly shrill and disappointing sitcom
You didn't like Will & Grace? Screw you. It was very few of the best sitcoms out there alongside Seinfeld and Fraiser. Friends was good until the damn show turned into a soap opera. THAT's when it became a disappointment.
Maybe you have no sense of humor.
As for the Megan Mullally show.. I only saw one episode. It's the one about trying to adopt pets. It was great to hear her normal voice though... it sounded just as good as it was in W&G.
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againo
17 years ago
So your implying that it's better than Friends? I'm not even a big fan of Friends, but I do know it was a funnier and better written sitcom than Will and Grace ever was...Partly because it got most of its "Soap Opera" days behind itself in the early seasons, and partly because it doesn't rely so much on stereotypical gay jokes and incredibly annoying characters. W&G, on the other hand, was just the opposite--this was probably the MOST soap opera-ish sitcom ever televised.
And another thing, just because someone does not agree with your high appraisal of W&G they're suddenly in danger of having no sense of humor?? Maybe your just ignorant.
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