The New Normal Falls Short Of It's Goal!

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NBC has created a television program that is intended to bring down all biases that John Q Public has developed from the horrible years that the Cleavers and the Bradys spent trying to make us understand that life, can in fact, be rosey.

That program is called The New Normal and can be viewed on NBC, Tuesdays at 9:30/8:30c. (I never understood the whole eight thirty, nine thirty central thing. First of all, do people not know what time zone they are in?  One would think that after one goof where a favorite program was missed, the lesson would have been learned by people in central time.  And what about the people in pacific time?  Do they not get to watch any of these shows?  The West Coast is where the shows are made, so maybe they see them live. I dunno.)

The New Normal is a show about a woman; who is a single mom, who has a grandmother that raised her. The grandmother is crass and an extremely right wing opinionated bitch with very little room for acceptance in her heart. The woman flees to the West Coast and she meets a gay couple, who want to have a baby and there is a black woman with blond hair.  Got it?

This is not a new concept.  In my humble opinion, this nothing more than an updated version of Brian Cooke's ABC sitcom Too Close For Comfort, only Monroe has multiplied and the Ted Knight character is played by Ellen Barkin.

Ellen Barkin has tumbled back to earth after having a noteworthy career on the big screen. Barkin, who has starred with DeNiro, Pacino, DiCaprio, Bridges and Nicholson, now appears weekly on the little screen with NeNe Leakes, whose claim to fame is The Real House Wives of Atlanta.

click to watch Three's Company

The New Normal isn't even that dissimilar to Three's Company, another Cooke show which aired in the 1980's on ABC, only this time Barkin's role is modeled after the roles played by Norman Fell (Mr. Roper) and later by Don Knotts (Mr. Furley).  Even though Jack Tripper, played by John Ritter, isn't gay, they pretend that he is so that he can rent an apartment with two women. (You might not remember, but there was a time when it was better to be gay then to live with a member of the opposite sex without being married)

This was a transitional move used by ABC to acclimate the American viewers to alternate lifestyles.  Monroe, played by Jim J Bullock, from Too Close for Comfort, was openly gay both on the show and in real life which served as the intended natural progression for cultural assimilation. 

So, I guess the American viewer hasn't evolved fast enough for Hollywood to develop programming that can be subtle.  The message seems to be the same, that alternate lifestyles are not only okay, but that the consumer better get on board or get going.  The cable networks have lots of programming that subtly introduces different types of people (True Blood), and the networks have followed suit with shows like, Modern Family on ABC and Glee on FOX, both of which which show alternative lifestyle characters interacting in everyday situations with persons of more traditional lifestyles. (I hate that we have to define the different lifestyles)

Lydia at a Dodgers game in 2009

I am afraid that The New Normal takes it a little too far.  If the intention by the show's creators, Ryan Murphy and Ali Adler, is to educate America by shocking them into acceptance the way that Cooke did in the late 70's and 80's, I will caution them with one little fact.  (Ellen Barkin, if you are reading please pay special attention)  Acclimation comes with growing pains.

Too Close For Comfort was canceled when Ted Knight died. John Ritter died of an aortic dissection. Jim J Bullock lost his partner to HIV and learned that he, too, has the virus.  Suzanne Somers ( Chrissy, Three's Company) sells exercise equipment. Joyce DeWitt (Janet Three's Company) has had legal troubles due to substance abuse and cannot seem to resurrect her career.  Richard Kline (Larry from Three's Company) was last seen in 2007 as the 32nd credited actor in the smash hit, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.  Nancy Dussault (Muriel Rush, Too Close) was last seen on Broadway in 1989. Deborah Van Valkenburgh (Jackie Rush, Too Close for Comfort) is still acting but her films are debuting at Cinema and Draft houses in places like Alamo, TX.  Lydia Cornell (Sara Rush from Too Close) is writing and doing radio now, which is a shame because she looks great at 59 years old.  Norman Fell and Don Knotts have both passed away.

Is awreness important? Of course it is.  But remember, everything has a price.  Sometimes it's your career and sometimes it's your life.  For Lydia Cornell, it wasn't her boobs, that's for sure!

Enjoy!