Life with Roger aired from August 1996 until June 1997 on The WB.
A very odd couple shared a Manhattan apartment in this comedy. Roger and Jason ( Mike O'Malley, Maurice Godin) had met on a bridge when Jason's car stalled out in the wee small hours of his wedding day and Roger, who was on the railing contemplating suicide , fixed it and then let Jason talk him out of jumping. Homeless Roger, an uninhibited free spirit, talked Jason out of the wedding-at the alter-and became his roommate, trying to loosen him up. Jason, an orthopedic surgeon, was responsible but neurotic , and Lanie ( Hallie Todd), his sexy but insecure sister who lived across the hall, was taking acting classes. She liked unpredictable Roger. Duffy's was the bar where Roger hung out and tried to find women for Jason to go out with. Myra ( Meredith Scott Lynn), Jason's pushy ex-fiance , who had been seen occasionally earlier in the season, became a regular in January when her father bought their building and made her manager-so she could drive everybody crazy.
A Review from The New York Times
TELEVISION REVIEW
Two Oddly Familiar Guys in a Diner
By CARYN JAMES
Published: August 24, 1996
By the end of September television viewers may feel they've been locked in a room with Felix and Oscar, kept after school for detention and overcome by aliens. The new season's trends include ''Odd Couple'' wannabees, classroom series and ''X-Files'' clones. And as if that thematic overload wasn't enough, there is a monstrous scheduling battle coming, with the three major networks planning premieres of most new shows during the third week of September (at last count, 16 premieres in 6 days). With this traffic jam among major networks, what's a netlet to do?
The smaller networks, WB and UPN, have shrewdly decided to get a head start, rolling out their new series this coming week. Beginning tomorrow night, WB (Channel 11 in New York) starts what it calls ''Sneak Peek'' week, with debuts of two new shows at 8:30 and 9:30.
The one worth watching is ''Life With Roger,'' an ''Odd Couple'' comedy saved by glints of dark humor. The show does not start in a promising way. Jason (Maurice Godin), the fussy Felix-type who always does what he should, is driving around at 5 A.M, insomniac on his wedding day. He can't stand the snorting sound his fiancee makes when she breathes, but he's planning to marry her anyway.
Jason's car breaks down just in time for him to save Roger (Mike O'Malley) from jumping off a bridge. They go to breakfast at a diner where Roger, of course, eats Oscar-style and talks with his mouth full. But just when you're ready to give up on this show, two men walk into the diner: dead ringers for the hit men played by John Travolta and Samuel Jackson in ''Pulp Fiction.'' Roger panics. ''If they catch me I'm a dead man!'' he says.
Roger gets Jason into many scrapes; his car is towed; he is mugged at an ATM. But Roger also stops Jason's wrongheaded wedding, and in gratitude Jason lets the homeless Roger move in. What luck! Jason has an attractive unmarried sister who lives across the hall. Much of ''Life With Roger'' is just that convenient and predictable, until those ''Pulp Fiction'' characters turn up again.
Mr. O'Malley brings a goofy charm to Roger. Whether the series holds up will depend on whether it follows its edgier instincts or decides to play it safe.
Life is not so promising for ''The Steve Harvey Show,'' a reluctant-teacher sitcom. Mr. Harvey, the stand-up comedian who was in the short-lived series ''Me and the Boys,'' is much more likable and amusing than this show's tired premise. He plays Steve Hightower, who once led a group called Steve Hightower and the Hightops. Now he's reduced to teaching music at a rough Chicago high school.
He shows up for work wearing a bright red suit, which is the object of many jokes. ''Does that suit come with an eight-track?'' asks a student named Romeo.
Steve tangles with the attractive but hostile principal, Regina Grier (Wendy Raquel Robinson). It takes him the entire half-hour to figure out that she is the classmate, now older and slimmed down, he used to call Piggy Grier in high school. Mr. Harvey's sharp, stand-up delivery is put to good use. ''What's with that principal, treating me like I'm LaToya at a family reunion?'' he wonders. But he is surrounded by cliches, including two motor-mouthed female students who seem to be competing in a Rosie Perez talk-alike contest.
These first episodes of ''Life With Roger'' and ''The Steve Harvey Show'' will be repeated when the series begin their regular runs on Sept. 8. ''Life With Roger'' deserves its head start.
LIFE WITH ROGER
Warner Brothers Network, Sunday night at 9:30
(Channel 11 in New York)
Howard Adler and Bob Griffard, executive producers; Bob Keyes and Doug Keyes, co-executive producers; Nancylee Myatt, supervising producer; Tracey Ormandy, producer; Frank Merwald, associate producer.
WITH: Maurice Godin (Jason Clark), Mike O'Malley (Roger Hoyt) and Hallie Todd (Lanie Clark).
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