Lucy and Gale Gordon still have it. They are so good together. By this episode the acting of the others you can see improvement. Wish they could have had more seasons.
What ARE you talking about? I Love Lucy & the first 2-3 seasons of The Lucy Show (when Vivian was her co-star) were HEAVY on physical comedy & slapstick! Watch the eps about the electric mattress & "Lucy becomes a Kangaroo", (both HILARIOUS as any I Love Lucy ep)! "Lucy & Viv put up a TV Antenna", "The Loophole in the Lease," and the Cleopatra ep are other examples. "The end is near!" LOL!
Damn the memories I was ,16 when this aired in 1986. Had the show ran on for more seasons Lucy would probably not have been around to finish the series as she passed away in 1989.
Nah...the parents are much worse. Actually the granddaughter wasn't bad why she got other notable roles later on. Idk...the material was bad especially if you weren't Lucie and the old guy. So you can't really blame the other actors too much. The show was just an overall trainwreck really.
The trouble is that Lucy was still playing the "ditzy dame". It worked like a charm when she was younger on "I Love Lucy" and sort of worked on the early Lucy Shows. But by the time of "Here's Lucy", she was too old to play the character. Now middle aged with lots of blue eye shadow, she appeared merely annoying than amusing. When "Life With Lucy" was attempted, she was 75 years old and still trying to play a variation of a young Lucy Ricardo. The results were truly embarrassing both in the ratings and with the critics. Lucy should have done something like "The Golden Girls" where she could still be funny but in a more mature and age appropriate way.
NO. Nobody wanted to see Lucy be 'mature and age appropriate'. She was one of a kind. You don't put John Wayne in a musical and you don't make Lucy something she's not.
In my opinion, this show was doomed from the beginning, because she was trying too hard to make lightning strike twice. It was the 80's, so what had worked for her in the 50's/60's, was rather outdated by this time. I give her credit for trying another series, but it wasn't the same with Desi. I think she would've had a far longer (and richer) acting career doing a dramatic series or more movie roles (like "Yours, Mine and Ours" from 1968), rather than looking a fool like this and getting abysmal ratings. Gary Morton was a solid man for her, but he wasn't Desi: she never got the happiness in the end that she gave everyone else.
John Ritter getting cast as the husband Tedwould've been amazing. Lucy and him getting into physical comedy with Gale Gordon is instant gold. I'd cast a different actress instead of Ann Dusenberry(only movie I know her from is Jaws 2) I mean don't get me wrong she tried but the chemistry wasn't there with the cast. I adored Jenny Lewis as the granddaughter(she was the perfect choice)
You can tell they are trying WAYYYY too hard in this episode. Maybe they knew the ratings were in the toilet, so they decided loud and frantic was funny somehow.
I love Lucille Ball, but this show just didn't work. It was a slapstick sitcom, which was very dated and old fashioned in the 1980s, when all the popular sitcoms dealt with "issues." She was still great, but she should have shifted her routine to be more relevant to the times. No one really wanted to see an elderly Lucy doing slapstick. People might have wanted to see an elderly Lucy doing something new & age appropriate, though!
Lucy was Magnificent. RIP But, this show was a Big Mistake. This more like a stage production. Charles Levin was the cook in the opening episode of the Golden Girls. RIP
It’s a 50’s sitcom in the 70’s. It moved to slowly and wasn’t all that funny. The jokes were stale. I’m surprised Lucy didn’t realize it and change writers.
The thing about all the "Lucy" shows, is that they were always a copy of a copy of a copy. "I Love Lucy" being the original copy, and then the other ones to follow. And all getting a bit inferior as they went along, and "Life With Lucy" being the absolute worst. I think at this point, Lucy needed to become more of a supportive character, instead of having the plot centered around her. She was at an age here where people aren't really interested in what an old lady is doing during the day. Each show got worse as time went on, relying on old/played-out jokes and gags that couldn't keep up with the times. She never really outgrew her original character or stretched her acting chops: she was forever "Lucy Ricardo", trapped in 1951. "Life With Lucy" was an idea that should've been left on the cutting-room floor: her heart wasn't in it, anyway, because Desi was dying at the time. At some point as a Hollywood actor, you have to hang it up and realize you've had your time already: you're too old and/or washed-up. LET IT GO!
The reason Life With Lucy failed is because there was no strong plot development and the dialogue was formulaic and simplistic, the comedy was very weak, the acting was over-acting/reacting, and there was too much slapstick. The audience didn't accept Lucy in her role as grandmother/older woman who wore too much makeup and tried to act too young/too hip. Audiences still loved Lucy, but she should have been cast in a more realistic role commensurate with her age, which would have made her more believable. Also the children were just "cute" add-ons who were not vital or integral to any scene they appeared in. People mellow with age, but Lucy did not, which is a shame.
