4 Best TV Shows Similar to Down and Out in Beverly Hills
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Amazon’s excellent reboot seems more interested in interrogating Bond movies and television domestic dramas than its thin source material. So, remember that movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Not the Alfred Hitchcock Mr. and Mrs. Smith from 1941, the Doug Liman one about the two married assassins that end up trying to kill one another? (No, Scott Bakula was in the television show from the 90s about two married assassins called Mr. and Mrs. Smith.) This is the 2005 movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Remember all the tabloid stories about their relationship? Great! Do you remember the film itself? Kinda? Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of movie it was. Neither good nor bad, Mr. and Mrs. Smith modestly cleared the “watchable” bar mostly on the backs of its cute premise, Pitt and Jolie’s magnetism, and competent (if unremarkable) direction. It is, in that respect, a perfect candidate for a reboot - just good enough for you to wish someone had put in the work to make it better. Now, almost twenty years later, someone has. Continue Reading →
Frasier
When Frasier premiered in the fall of 1993 it had massive shoes to fill. That's probably an understatement. Its parent show, Cheers, was a critical and commercial monster in a way that can only happen when there are only three shows for two hundred million people to choose from. It was nominated for almost two hundred Emmys over the course of its eleven-year run, and its series finale aired to 90 million people (40% of the country’s then population) three months before Frasier’s start. So yeah, expectations were pretty high, and Frasier ended up pretty much meeting them all. While never as popular as Cheers (nothing has been as popular as Cheers since Cheers), it was nevertheless a solid commercial hit that carved out its own identity and won more Emmys than its parent show over the course of its own eleven-year run. A lot of that success was rooted in Frasier’s ability as its own, independent show with its own characters and rhythms instead of being Cheers 2.0. Continue Reading →
Sydney
Before he passed away at the age of 46, Philip Seymour Hoffman starred in 52 feature films. Starring roles, character pieces, chameleon work—he left a legacy nearly unmatched in both quality and quantity. Now, with P.S.H. I Love You, Jonah Koslofsky wafts through the cornucopia of the man’s offerings. Continue Reading →
Kevin Can F**K Himself
The formula isn’t a new one: the hot, hyper-competent wife who gave up her master’s track to marry the boorish, underachieving man-child. Just add three cameras and some annoying in-laws/neighbors, and you could be watching King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, or (God forbid) According to Jim. Some shows have put a unique spin on the formula, the most successful being Gloria Calderon Kellett’s One Day at a Time reboot. But overall, when you see a three-camera sitcom, you usually know what you’re getting. It’s like gas station coffee or dinner at Applebee’s. It’s just there. Continue Reading →