It's as if some college students were forced to write sitcom episodes as an assignment. They followed Sitcoms 101 by the textbook.
Thus the show feels fake, generic, and cookie cutter.
Agree or disagree?
Agree to a certain extent.
However, there is still a large market for "formulaic" sitcoms, and I really liked this one. Way better than the crappy reality shows, and American Idol and all its' lame-o spinoffs.
I agree with both the previous posts. The show feels fake and there is an audience for formulaic sitcoms.
Although sophomoric writing contributes to the problem, it's not the reason 'Til Death seems fake.
The reason the show feels fake is Brad Garrett, plain and simple. The character of Eddie Stark is too cartoonish. He's not believable as a human being.
Brad Garrett got away with playing a freak in Everybody Loves Raymond because he was a sideshow, while the main characters, Ray and Debra, were believable. A running joke in Everybody Loves Raymond was what a freak Robert was. In King of Queens, Doug Heffernan, and even Carrie, as crazy as they are, are believable. In 'Til Death, Brad Garrett is as far from believable as a human being as a freak can get. Eddie Stark seems like what he is- a stand-up comic doing shtick. A show that centers on a gigantic freak doing shtick is going to seem fake. It's simply not going to work.
Individual episodes don't feel fake (at least, no more fake than other sitcom). But the show had wild swings in tone, plot, and cast....so as a whole, it definitely feels fake. But for the same reason, it doesn't seem generic or "cookie cutter." Many of those individual episodes were very funny (and many weren't), and the show as a whole was definitely unique--though not really in a good way.
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