I'm a big fan of Betty White, so I decided to watch this show finally. I must say after watching the entire thing..I was left disappointed at the end. While Betty carries a lot of the show (and is more or less responsible for it getting a 5 instead of a 4 star rating, the show itself felt hollow. First of all...if you see the "behind the scenes" specials, you'll see Sean Hayes talking about how there had never been a show like this. A show about four 'older' women re-discovering their sexuality and learning you can still have a life after a certain age? Yep, doesn't sound familiar at all....right Betty? So it already was hobbled right out of the gate for being a more or less re-make of Golden Girls. Betty seems to basically be playing Sun Ann from Mary Tyler show if she were in her 90's (one of the reasons Betty and Rue swapped characters on GG was so Betty wouldn't be playing that same kind of role).
As for the show itself...it really falls into the sitcom genre perfectly...a little too perfectly.....sometimes felt like you were watching Three's Company or Love Boat given the ludicrous situations the girls find themselves in. Yes, I know that this is what a sitcom is, it just didn't click with me for some reason. It seemed like they focused on desperately trying to put them in a zany situation rather than focusing on any kind of actual story. The balance of the story vs the whacky situation just seemed off. There were many many lost/missed opportunities to explore further into a story and find something more meaningful. I'm not saying turn the entire show into a drama....but comedy doesn't have to be on call twenty-four hours a day either. It seemed like they had a mandate of "Comedy at all costs! Nothing substantive whatsoever!" and I feel like that ultimately hurt them.
Nothing that happened seemed to mean anything, and any story that should have or could have meant something was either ignored, or abandoned within a few episodes. Elka's supposedly dead husband turning back up alive? You could have explored how hurt she was by this...How she'd grieved for him, given up a portion of her life longing for him not taking opportunities to find someone else to be with due to her grief, but it's shrugged off as almost inconsequential within a few episodes, and barely mentioned again. Melanie's brain tumor? You really could have spread that out over an entire season, touching on what a woman goes through when she has an illness of that type (hair loss, weight loss, fear, not knowing). Could have had her reconnect with her family and re-evaluate the choices she's made, or had her become closer to her friends as they helped her through her ordeal, realizing that they were her family...instead it's referenced a few times and then dismissed utterly....with no health consequences at all....she even mentions how she's "sick and tired of being sick and tired".....umm you've been none of those, the show has not depicted you being "sick" in any way whatsoever.
Ever hear the expression "Show, don't tell" ? Well, show her being sick so we actually sympathize with her plight rather than saying she was without any shown evidence to support it. People who go through radiation and other medical procedures like that really have to endure something terrible...but the show made it seem like she had an inconvenient flu rather than something traumatic. The rest of the show is a hodgepodge of "let's set back the women's movement about two decades". "Oh why, why can't we get a man...women need men, they have no identity without a man! Now lets act like complete psychos...and wonder why we can't keep a man...must be a man's fault!".
"It's okay for me to violate a man's privacy by searching through his possessions, hacking his phone, or putting a gps tracker on his car/phone...and for me to have frank discussions about rating him on his ability in the sack, or his "size" or something else private...but if he does anything at all similar...better dump him..he's a pathetic loser and I can never trust him again! Why oh why do I have such bad luck with men?!" And of course by the end of the show they all wind up with a man...can't have any woman not having a man can we? Other than that, it was somewhat enjoyable...but could have been more.
Most jokes got a small chuckle...and the only belly laughs seemed to come from Betty "This never happens on Password!". But seeing the guest stars was cute and nostalgic...even if after a while it seemed like it went down the Simpsons path of "Guest Stars are more important than plot". Ultimately, it was worth a watch, but just doesn't seem like it would hold up to multiple re-watches...the jokes and situations just don't seem to have that timeless quality to them and the somewhat negative portrayal of women as hypocritical man-crazed lunatics really detracts from it's longevity.
Review of Hot in Cleveland
