Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - It's All Relative

It's All Relative aired from October 2003 until April 2004 on ABC.

Two young lovebirds struggled to blend their polar-opposite families in this cliche-ridden sitcom. Bobby ( Reid Scott) was a blue-collar guy who liked sports and bartended at his father's Boston bar , O'Neil's Pub. His fiance Liz ( Maggie Lawson) was a WASPy Harvard student and bubbly chatterbox, given to intellectual pursuits. As if that was not enough to cue the laugh track, their families might as well have been from different planets. Mace ( Lenny Clarke) was Bobby's blustery Irish Catholic dad, Audrey ( Harriet Samson Harris) his earthy sensible mom, and Maddy ( Paige Moss), his sexy-but-dumb sister. Liz, on the other hand , had two dads, having been raised since birth by a gay couple, fluttery art gallery owner Phillip(John Benjamin Hickey) and somewhat more grounded schoolteacher Simon ( Christopher Sieber). Much of the humor stemmed from the clash between meat-and-potatoes Mace and well-heeled over-the-top Phillip, both obstinite but both wanting to see their children happy.

A Review from Variety

It's All Relative
(Series; ABC, Wed. Oct. 1; 8:30 p.m.)
By BRIAN LOWRY

Taped in Hollywood by Paramount Television and Touchstone Television. Executive producers, Anne Flett-Giordano, Chuck Ranberg, Craig Zadan, Neil Meron; producer, Tim Berry; director, Andy Cadiff; writers, Flett-Giordano, Ranberg;

Mace O'Neil - Lenny Clarke
Audrey - Harriet Sansom Harris
Bobby - Reid Scott
Liz - Maggie Lawson
Simon - Christopher Sieber
Philip - John Benjamin Hickey

After the summer of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," TV's stereotyping of gays as prissy fashion snobs continues with "It's All Relative," another of this fall's Romeo & Juliet-inspired series, only in this case you'll want to swallow the poison. Although the producers contend that the image of loving gay parents amounts to progress, the show manages to commit two of the seven deadly sitcom sins -- it's not funny and is sparingly preachy. Even a decent lead-in from "My Wife and Kids" and marginal competition shouldn't be enough to save this series, which feels like a competitive gift to the second half-hour of NBC's "Ed" and the WB's "Smallville

While it's easy to dismiss this as "The Birdcage: The Series," "Relative" actually dabbles as much in class warfare as homophobia. Liz (Maggie Lawson) is a Harvard student who falls for Bobby (Reid Scott), a blue-collar Irish Catholic who works in his parents' bar. When Bobby's mother learns that Liz's adopted parents are gay men, she asks, "Whatever happened to that nice black girl you were dating?"

And she's the tolerant one compared to her husband Mace (the well-traveled Lenny Clarke), who refers to Liz's two dads (John Benjamin Hickey and Christopher Sieber) as a "freak show." Upon entering their immaculate home, he blusters, "Of course they have a nice place. That's what they're good at." Insert multiple exclamation points and laugh track here.

Yet in order to keep the insults flying both ways, Philip (Hickey), an art gallery owner, is every bit as disapproving of the O'Neils (yes, the O'Neils), seeing Bobby as beneath their daughter, who they took in when the girl was an infant. Although that scenario is built for comedic conflict -- think Archie Bunker trading barbs with George Jefferson -- the first two episodes seldom rise above the "Gays love show tunes" and "Irishmen drink beer" level; indeed, with references to "Funny Girl" and "West Side Story" in the pilot, they're on schedule to begin synergistically plugging Disney's "Aida" and "The Lion King" by the November sweeps.

Executive producer-writers Anne Flett-Giordano and Chuck Ranberg are "Frasier" alumni, but other than having a knack for persnickety characters unafraid to ask for a Chardonnay that's "not too woody," they can't lift this material beyond the broadest of jokes and lowest of common denominators. Even in a second episode, where the characters take on a bit more shape, the plot involves a stunning woman who informs Liz she's going to steal Bobby from her -- the kind of dialogue one only hears on sitcom sets, invariably followed by a big "Ooooooo."

Lawson and Scott generate scant chemistry as the status-crossed lovers, while Clarke belts out every line as if he's about to have a stroke -- a little of which goes a long way. Harris, Hickey and Sieber are somewhat constrained by their roles, though a second-episode thread about Sieber's promiscuous past at least exhibits potential.

Even if the show benefits from initial curiosity, it's hard to imagine "It's All Relative" becoming the sitcom hit ABC needs, feeling rather like a visit from those relatives you can tolerate only if such encounters are few and far between.

A Review from The New York Times

TELEVISION REVIEW; Class-Blind Lovebirds And Hidebound Parents

By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Published: October 1, 2003

The old Boston accent gets a workout in ''It's All Relative,'' a comedy of manners that pays tribute to that city's venerable (exhausted?) class conflict between proper WASP's and rowdy Irish Catholics. Mace (Lenny Clarke) and Audrey O'Neil (Harriet Sansom Harris), a middle-aged couple, drop R's with abandon. So does their daughter Maddy (Paige Moss), along with patrons of the Hub pub, which they own.

In the other corner, for the strong R's, are the Protestants, who here are so proper they're gay: Philip (John Benjamin Hickey), a gallery owner, and Simon (Christopher Sieber), a teacher. They live in a neat house and discuss sweetness and light. The no-R's collide with the R's when Bobby (Reid Scott), the O'Neils' bartender son, becomes engaged to Liz (Maggie Lawson), Philip and Simon's adopted daughter. (The producers have not yet given Philip, Simon and Liz last names.)

The lovebirds, who are affronted by their parents' narrow-mindedness, believe in class-blind love. Suitably, Bobby is bland, streetwise and handsome, while Liz is bland, officious and pretty.

Can't you see it all from here? Drunk jokes and snob jokes and gay jokes. Even accent jokes. When Bobby asks Liz how she likes Hahvahd, where she's a student, she says: ''There's no need to drop the R's. I go to Harvard.'' Audrey, who's passing by, says: ''Everybody knows that, deah. No need to keep rubbing our noses in it.''

Of course Mace wants Bobby to have a Catholic wife, a fertile one with straight parents. And Philip wants a classy guy for Liz, not the Irish kind who would ''run off to a life of lower-middle-class obscurity, where he and Sherry McSlutsky'' would ''swill their beer and rut like bison.''

All right, so the content of the whole series can't be guessed from the premise. There is certainly this odd dialogue. ''It's All Relative,'' in fact, appears to be on to something good in the O'Neils and Philip and Simon, all four idiosyncratic figures who provide the show's cheeriest moments.

''Did you tell me not to judge people prematurely?'' Liz asks plaintively, on learning of her fathers' disdain for Bobby.

''No,'' one dad answers. ''We told you not to judge a musical by the road company.''

It's hard to tell whether these lines work because they're funny or just because they deviate from the show's obvious setup. But more schematic sitcoms than ''It's All Relative'' have drawn audiences, and maybe this one will too -- especially if the Protestant-Catholic Pandora's box is really opened, allowing the witty gay guys and the witty bar-owners to have out their parochial prejudices and forget about their simpering, open-minded children.

IT'S ALL RELATIVE
ABC, tonight at 8:30, Eastern and Pacific times; 7:30, Central time.

Anne Flett-Giordano and Chuck Ranberg, executive producers and writers; Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, executive producers; produced by Paramount Television and Touchstone Television.

WITH: Reid Scott (Bobby O'Neil), Maggie Lawson (Liz), Lenny Clarke (Mace O'Neil), Harriet Sansom Harris (Audrey O'Neil), Paige Moss (Maddy), Christopher Sieber (Simon), and John Benjamin Hickey (Philip). Guests: Dennis Cockrum (Jack) and Jimmy Palumbo (Tony).

Correction: October 9, 2003, Thursday Because of an editing error, a television review of the ABC comedy ''It's All Relative'' on Oct. 1 misstated the name of the pub owned by two characters. It is O'Neil's, not the Hub.

A Review from The Boston Globe

Stereotypes form one big shallow family
By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff, 10/1/2003

In July and August, the entertainment media made a big deal about gay men on TV, mostly because there was nothing else to write about. For the first summer in years, there was no reality ratings craze, and we were left to contemplate Bravo's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and how it signaled the changing face -- and wardrobe, and home design -- of prime time. Inflated evidence for this new queening of America included Bravo's cheesy gay-dating series "Boy Meets Boy" and a forthcoming ABC sitcom called "It's All Relative." A shrill "La Cage aux Folles"-like show featuring a pair of gay dads, "It's All Relative" arrives tonight at 8:30 on WCVB-TV (Channel 5).

In truth, TV has been a friendly place for gay men since the mid-1990s. "Will & Grace" is the most obvious and enduring example, but in recent years we've seen a string of gay-male-themed series (2001's "Some of My Best Friends"), gay secondary characters ("Dawson's Creek," "NYPD Blue"), and gay reality cast members. Gay men aren't new on TV, and like every other group represented there, they even have an established TV stereotype of their very own. Many seasons before Carson Kressley was fussing with vintage T-shirts and jeans on "Queer Eye," TV had already created a category for him.

The two dads on "It's All Relative" fit neatly into this stereotype. They're white, upscale, in good shape, a little prissy, and always at the ready with a show-tune lyric, a double entendre, and a snipe about fashion. Likable, superficial, they could easily fill in as a substitute for any member of the Fab Five. In tonight's premiere, you'll find Philip (John Benjamin Hickey) and Simon (Christopher Sieber) quoting lines from "Casablanca," quipping about what to wear to the symphony, and scenting their home with oranges.

Of course, they aren't the only stereotypes in "It's All Relative," which is set in Boston. The series is a culture-clash comedy built on one-dimensional characters doing battle with other one-dimensional characters on a single plane of comedy.

The premise of the show is that, like Dharma and Greg, engaged lovebirds Bobby and Liz come from opposite backgrounds. Her parents are the liberal gays, while his parents are Republican, working-class Irish who run a South Boston tavern. Bobby's father, Mace O'Neil (Lenny Clarke), is a bigot who gripes about the "fruit loops" his son is involved with, while Bobby's demure mother, Audrey (Harriet Sansom Harris), responds to the gay issue by asking, "Whatever happened to that nice black girl you were dating?" Clarke fits right in as the beer-drinking Southie dad; he brings his authentic Boston accent and a booming delivery to the script. Harris, though, has trouble mastering her local accent, with lines such as "You pushed him too faaah." Talk about a sheepish wife.

The show is basically a whole bunch of name-calling between the two sets of parents, as the gay men sharpen their cat claws and the O'Neils lob crude insults. Meanwhile, Bobby and Liz -- played with enormous blandness by Reid Scott and Maggie Lawson -- are stuck in the middle, trying to be happy and innocent despite all the mutual intolerance. Like us, they just want everyone to relax and take it down a notch.

It's All Relative

Starring: Lenny Clarke, Harriet Sansom Harris, Reid Scott, Maggie Lawson, Christopher Sieber, John Benjamin Hickey, Paige Moss

On: ABC (WCVB-TV, Channel 5)

Time: Tonight, 8:30-9

A Review from The Michigan Daily

ABC's 'It's All Relative' a relatively new sitcom

By Kevin Hollifield,
10/8/03

Take equal parts "All in the Family" and "Will & Grace," neglect quality and let the cliches fly. The result is ABC's "It's All Relative," the flavor of humor without the carbs of biting social commentary.

Lenny Clarke ("The Job") leads this no name cast as "Mace" O'Neil, a predictable, Irish-Catholic, bar-owning, Republican, poor man's Colin Quinn. His son Bobby (Reid Scott) is engaged to Liz (Maggie Lawson), who he met on a ski trip. He is a bartender who went to junior college; she goes to Harvard. Just for good measure, she has two gay fathers.

In the pilot, the parents of the two crazy lovebirds finally meet. Liz's dads go "undercover" to the O'Neils' bar as straight dock workers and the forced jokes fly. While this show is somewhat humorous, it is by no means appointment TV, just an amusing waste of a half hour.

In an effort to regain middle-American family ratings, ABC has countless interchangeable fighting in-law shows this season. Not to be outdone, "It's All Relative" offers several of the classic sitcom stereotypes: the slow-witted guy, the wife who continually puts her husband in his place, the effeminate homosexual and the wise-cracking sister.

The show is forced at times and may offend both sides of the ideological spectrum. Obviously ripping off Archie Bunker, both in characters and in title, "It's All Relative" works better than saying what it really is: "Thirty minutes till 'The Bachelor.'"

Rating: 3 stars

For more on It's All Relative go to http://www.wchstv.com/abc/itsallrelative/

For a Website dedicated to Maggie Lawson go to http://www.maggielawson.net/