I was killing some time the other night after cleaning up some backlog on the DVR and decided to see how bad the new Odd Couple was before I slipped away to play Fallout 4. It’s awful, and it is either Matthew Perry’s fault or it is mine.
He looks like he is acting. He sounds like he is acting. Everything his character does appears like acting. There is no suspension of disbelief for me. It was 20 minutes of Matthew Perry doing bad Middle School theater as Oscar Madison.
To be fair, I am willing to admit it might just be me.
I might have a Matthew Perry paradigm which would go great with my other cast paradigms for this program.
Whenever I hear Yvette Nicole Brown’s voice I expect Drake and Josh to bust in like Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton (or Fred and Barney for that matter–seeing as they are all the same comedic archetypes), even though she’s done a ton of other work.
Wendell Pierce will always be Lt. ‘Bunk’ Moreland from The Wire.
The other cast members also have a long list of credits, which makes me think this show should be better than I think it is, but I can’t get past the Perry-effect. (Or is it my Walter Matthew or Jack Klugman paradigm?)
It’s not a big deal. I wasn’t looking for another show to follow but it is striking to me how bad of an Oscar Madison I perceive Perry to be. Enough that I actually took five minutes to write about it.
Note: CBS has renewed it for the fall. I guess they’re OK with Perry’s Oscar Madison, even with mediocre ratings.
