Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Costello: Sue Costello

Costello aired from September until October 1998 on FOX.

Sue ( Sue Costello), was a spunky outspoken 27 year old barmaid at The Bull And Dog Bar, in a working class neighborhood of South Boston. She was trying to better herself and took a lot of abuse about it from her family and the beer-guzzling customers at the bar. Spud ( Dan Lauria), her father, was a carpenter who frowned on her intellectual ambitions; Lottie ( Jenny O'Hara), her mother, was a waitress at the Bull And Dog, and Jimmy ( Chuck Walczak), her dim-witted, pretty-boy kid brother, made a career out of not having a real job. Trish ( Kerry O'Malley), Sue's best friend, was a fellow barmaid/bartender at the bar where Mary ( Josie DiVencenzo), her slutty nemesis, who worked at The Department Of Motor Vehicles, was a regular.

Although all the yelling and punching each other around was in good humor, Costello was lambasted by critics for being crude and offensive. ( Jimmy looking at a University Of Massachusetts catalog: These bitches need to get laid!"). The language was pretty salty by the standards of prime-time television, but the real problems with the show were it's one-dimensional stereotyping of Boston's working class Irish, and it's inability to find an audience. After a month on the air, it became one of the first casulties of the season.

A Review From The Michigan Daily

'Costello' serves up a disaster
By Michael Galloway
Daily TV/New Media Editor
FOX must be hoping that a blue-collar hour of sorts will be enough to slay "Buffy" and steer people away from NBC "Must See TV" on Tuesday nights.

The new show "Costello" is one of the greatest attempts to appeal to the working class viewer since "Roseanne" and will be following the acclaimed satire of white trash living, "King of the Hill." But while "Hill" and "Costello" might be somewhat similar in theme, there's no comparison in quality.

The show stars actress/comedienne Sue Costello who plays Sue Murphy, a character based on her own life and times growing up in Southern Boston, or as it's called in the show, "Southie."

Sue works at the local bar, The Bull Dog, along with her best friend, Trish (Kerry O'Malley), to whom she divulges everything. Or Sue did until recently when she broke up with her high school boyfriend, P.J. (Matthew Mahoney), because he doesn't sho

Courtesy of Fox Broadcasting
It's a dog-eat-dog world for Costello, whose new sitcom won't last this fall season.
w much interest in her going to the University of Massachusetts and taking some classes.

Now, she has to move in with her disappointed Irish-Catholic family who doesn't understand why Sue broke up with PJ.

On top of this, Sue's arch rival, Mary McDonough (Josie DiVenczo), has started dating P.J., and Mary and the whole town keep telling her she'll never do better.

The show deserves one note of praise for its believability. Political correctness has little meaning in this Irish Catholic neighborhood.

Marriage is expected and pined for, even when love isn't exactly involved. A lot of fights break out over nothing between people who have known each other for years, and usually, resolving them is not accomplished calmly.

The characters also seem like they could be real. Sue's mother, Lottie (Jenny O'Hara), can't express herself emotionally although she deeply cares for her family. Her brother, Jimmy (Chuck Walczak), doesn't want to work a full-time job, and her father, somehow named Spud, is a loud and rough carpenter who seems to wrap his life around sports.

All of this should make for quality television, but "Costello," even by TV standards, is predictable and offers some of the most unabashed examples of overacting outside of daytime soap operas.

Costello is one of the worst perpetrators in this regard. All she does is grin, as if telling the audience that they're supposed to be laughing.

Moreover, she doesn't have good delivery on the jokes half the time, which is a bit surprising since she's a standup comedian.

After reviewing these numerous faults, one question comes to mind: Why name the show after the no-name actress playing the main role and not give the same name to the main character based on that actress's life?

But those tuning in to find out who was blown up on "King of the Hill" should quickly tune out afterwards, and the question will become irrelevant when "Costello" is replaced at mid-season with what will hopefully be a better show. It shouldn't be hard to find one.

09-08-98

For a website dedicated to Sue Costello go to www.suecostello.com/