"Old Christine": The "Curse" Continues

So, another relatively new sitcom that I finally got around to watching, and immediately wished that I hadn't, is CBS' Monday night debacle The New Adventures of Old Christine starring Seinfeld and Saturday Night Live alumnus Julia Louis-Dreyfus, which returned to the Eye Network's line-up this week after a far too brief hiatus.

After Dreyfus won her Emmy last fall, it was said that the success of Old Christine meant the end of the so-called "Seinfeld Curse." The Seinfeld cast was supposedly cursed, you may remember, since every show they did after Seinfeld failed. Those shows failed, however, not because they were supernaturally doomed, but because they were crap. By that reasoning, the "Seinfeld Curse" has not ended, for Old Christine sucks.

When Dreyfus won that Emmy, I sort of suspected that it had less to do with the artistic merits of her performance than the fact that, of the actresses nominated, hers was the only show returning for the new season and which could actually use the win to help boost ratings. After watching the show, I'm forced to conclude that must have been the case, as nothing about this train wreck of a TV show is even remotely worthy of any sort of award.

Old Christine is trite and horribly unfunny, with not one even remotely likable character in the whole ensemble. Even the kid's a jerk. Frankly, if I want to watch unlikable idiots bickering about trivial crap, I'll attend a family reunion. That would even be funnier than Old Christine. My brother is usually good for a couple of laughs, especially if he's been drinking.

To be honest, the entirety of CBS venerable Monday night comedy block, once home to such classics as M*A*S*H, One Day At A Time, and Murphy Brown is now just a wasteland of unwatchable unfunny garbage. The network might as well just scrap it and replace the whole mess with reality shows.