Actually the age factor in the show wasn't a problem--the gut-wrenchingly bad writing was the problem. This is hideously unfunny material.
I couldn't tell by listening to the laugh track if it was automated-- as laugh tracks often were in the era from which this show evolved--or if they just had a really easily amused audience. I heard the audience laughing, of all things, at Dick dancing around in a baggy red sweater while a 3D animated caricature of him cavorted on a monitor screen. This mystified me, since the show was created in 2004. Where did they locate an audience that would find a 3D cartoon dancing funny? Or even interesting? Perhaps the audience was made up of Sun City retirees like the cast, and they had never heard of "Shrek" before.
I haven't figured out if most of the writing team has watched episodes of the original show--I caught no clue of this one way or the other. The skyscraper-glitz penthouse suite the Petries were living in---in place of their previously normal suburban home--was pointless, and actually called so much attention to itself that it undermined the show. "Look! we have money and we're still alive and kicking!"-apparently was the message.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the writing. Supposedly Carl Reiner was responsible for this mess, but I find that rather incredible.
Hope Dick gets more work. Like Sean Connery, Bill Shatner, and Paul Newman, the aging actor still has more to offer the audience than do the clueless folk running today's film and TV studios. Age is a transient state. Stupid is forever.
I couldn't tell by listening to the laugh track if it was automated-- as laugh tracks often were in the era from which this show evolved--or if they just had a really easily amused audience. I heard the audience laughing, of all things, at Dick dancing around in a baggy red sweater while a 3D animated caricature of him cavorted on a monitor screen. This mystified me, since the show was created in 2004. Where did they locate an audience that would find a 3D cartoon dancing funny? Or even interesting? Perhaps the audience was made up of Sun City retirees like the cast, and they had never heard of "Shrek" before.
I haven't figured out if most of the writing team has watched episodes of the original show--I caught no clue of this one way or the other. The skyscraper-glitz penthouse suite the Petries were living in---in place of their previously normal suburban home--was pointless, and actually called so much attention to itself that it undermined the show. "Look! we have money and we're still alive and kicking!"-apparently was the message.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the writing. Supposedly Carl Reiner was responsible for this mess, but I find that rather incredible.
Hope Dick gets more work. Like Sean Connery, Bill Shatner, and Paul Newman, the aging actor still has more to offer the audience than do the clueless folk running today's film and TV studios. Age is a transient state. Stupid is forever.