Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Rules of Engagement

Rules of Engagement aired from February 2007 until ? on CBS.

After dating for seven months Adam ( Oliver Hudson) had just gotten engaged to perky Jennifer ( Bianca Kajlich) and moved into her New York apartment. The couple living next door, sour Jeff ( Patrick Warburton) and sarcastic Audrey ( Megyn Price), had been married for 12 years. Big deep-voiced Jeff was constantly giving Adam advice on how to deal with Jennifer, but Jeff's cynical attitude about relationships between the sexes didn't give Adam much comfort. Adam's sleazy best friend , Russell ( David Spade), a commitment-phobic male chauvinest pig, provided even less encouragement for his dicision to be with Jennifer.

A Review from Variety

Rules of Engagement
(Series; CBS, Mon. Feb. 5, 9:30 p.m.)
By BRIAN LOWRY

Taped in Los Angeles by Happy Madison Prods. and CBS Paramount Network Television in association with Sony Pictures Television. Executive producers, Tom Hertz, Jack Giarraputo, Doug Robinson, Andy Ackerman; producer, Barbara Stoll; director, Ackerman; writer, Hertz.

Adam - Oliver Hudson
Jennifer - Bianca Kajlich
Audrey - Megyn Price
Russell - David Spade
Jeff - Patrick Warburton

Providing further evidence that execution trumps premise every time, "Rules of Engagement" covers virtually the same territory as Fox's dreary "'Til Death" in a far livelier and funnier manner, buoyed by Patrick Warburton's dry-to-the-bone turn as the 12-years-married guy to Oliver Hudson's just-engaged neighbor. David Spade triangulates the stages-of-romance field as a bar-trawling sleazebag, and even he's less annoying than usual, with two of the first three episodes revealing an assured, risque, semi-cynical air that should dovetail nicely with "Two and a Half Men," even versus muscular competition from "24" and "Heroes."

Adam (Hudson) has somewhat impulsively proposed to Jennifer (Bianca Kajlich), but his enthusiasm and dreams of a passionate lifelong romp are rained on by Jeff (Warburton), who gloomily sad-sacks his way through the highs and lows of marriage to Audrey (Megyn Price).

"We've sort of wrapped up the sex portion of the marriage," he deadpans to Adam. "It's been replaced by Letterman."

Adam's friends include Spade's Russell, who's all about getting laid and, approaches the suggestion of commitment with tangible scorn. He also has considerable fun baiting the towering Warburton, whom he refers to at various times as a "friendly giant" and "Magilla."

Written by Tom Hertz (most recently of "Freddie") and directed by Andy Ackerman (the "Seinfeld" alum whose feather-filled headdress includes the sitcom that "Rules" supplants, the consistently amusing "The New Adventures of Old Christine"), "Rules," like "Two and a Half Men," is raunchy and more than a little sex obsessed. That peaks in the second installment when Jeff speaks mysteriously of his "birthday deal," something Audrey does for him every year, triggering speculation by Jeff and Russell. There's also a clever bit in this early batch of episodes where Adam and Jennifer begin fretting about the notches on their respective bedposts.

Warburton, his eyes narrow slits and voice a low rumble, makes the best use of his lovable-lug assets since the short-lived and underappreciated live-action version of "The Tick." Price proves a good match, and Kajlich is highly appealing as Jennifer -- sexy and energetic in an extremely natural way.

As for cautionary flags, Hudson's "What am I getting into?" reaction to virtually every situation already begins to feel a trifle repetitious, and the third episode (in which Jeff tests his dating chops after Audrey challenges him) is notably weaker, though the cast still musters a few moments.

Perhaps the best news for CBS is that "Rules" feels like a more natural bridge from "Men" into "CSI: Miami," provided that the inevitable blitz of Super Bowl promos can lure viewers (and especially men) into the tent. If nothing else, the Eye net continues to be the only web stoking the fading embers of traditional multicamera sitcoms, as NBC (with some success) and ABC (without much) have shifted their focus toward single-camera film.

Whatever the format, half-hours won't bounce back until more of them engage the first rule of comedy: Be funny.

A Review from The New York Times

TV Review | 'Rules of Engagement'
The Sitcom Question: Tie the Knot or Not?
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: February 5, 2007

On “Rules of Engagement,” a sitcom that begins tonight on CBS, David Spade plays Russell, an aging, skirt-chasing bachelor who prefers sex with strangers. “I do what I want, I date who I want,” he tells a friend. “And I sleep with whoever will let me.”

The average age of CBS viewers is 53, and plugs for heedless promiscuity could be fatally misinterpreted by a generation that came of age before AIDS, S.T.D.’s and safe-sex practices.

The only redeeming factor is that unlike the CBS sitcom that immediately precedes it, “Rules of Engagement” does not give the cad the last word on romance. Charlie Sheen’s bad-boy behavior on “Two and a Half Men” goes unchecked; his only foil is his pathetic divorced brother. The new sitcom tries to redress the balance by pitting the randy roué against two contentedly committed couples.

Marriage is a little like Churchill’s definition of democracy — the worst form of relationship, except for all the others. “Rules of Engagement” illustrates that axiom by focusing on the three stages of sitcom love: a sex-obsessed bachelor, a young engaged couple and a long-married husband and wife.

It’s not a groundbreaking new series by any means, but it has some redeeming virtues.

Promos and much of the pilot suggest, a bit unfairly, that the show is one long Henny Youngman routine about the wife as ball and chain. The newly minted fiancé, Adam (Oliver Hudson), happily tells his older, more beaten-down neighbor, Jeff (Patrick Warburton), “I think marriage is going to be great.” Jeff replies in a gravelly deadpan, “Based on what?”

What saves “Rules” from its own deadening laugh track and ping-pong punch lines is Mr. Warburton. This large, deep-voiced actor who played an anchorman on “Less Than Perfect,” and Elaine’s boyfriend Puddy on “Seinfeld,” is very funny, mostly because he never seems to be trying. His poker-faced timing makes the most of even mediocre one-liners, and beneath sequoian impassivity lurks an engagingly warm persona. As Jeff, Mr. Warburton is the exact opposite of the smooth, glib and antic network executive played by Alec Baldwin on “30 Rock,” but he is just as much of a scene-stealer.

Accordingly Jeff’s spirited relationship with his wife of 12 years, Audrey (Megyn Price), takes on a certain “Mad About You” charm, even when she is complaining about his beer consumption.

Audrey accuses him of having too many beers after a baseball game. “I had maybe four,” he retorts indignantly. “Then three lite ones, so five.”

Networks settle into patterns of comedy that are hard to shake. NBC has always done best with workplace sitcoms or ersatz family units in which friendship, not marriage, is the central force. It was true of “Cheers,” “Seinfeld,” “Frasier” and “Will & Grace,” and is still true in the era of “The Office” and “30 Rock.”

ABC still has a few classic mom-and-dad sitcoms on its roster, like “According to Jim,” but it always harbored a hankering for swoony romance, from the days of “Moonlighting” and “Dynasty” to the current crop of comedies about sex and love: “Ugly Betty, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Men in Trees.”

CBS, home of “The King of Queens,” cannot quite let the home and hearth formula go. For every sitcom about single people, like “The New Adventures of Old Christine” or “Two and a Half Men,” CBS reverts to a more traditional kitchen-table sitcom. Jeff and Audrey, who are childless, have roots that go all the way back to CBS classics like “The Honeymooners” and “I Love Lucy” in the days before Little Ricky.

Jeff is a deflating influence on Adam, who impulsively proposed to his girlfriend of seven months, Jennifer (Bianca Kajlich), and is only beginning to understand what he is in for. He wonders if couples have as much sex when husband and wife as they did when dating. “Actually we’ve wrapped up the sex portion of our marriage,” Jeff says placidly. “It’s been replaced by Letterman.”

Russell is, of course, appalled that his best friend, Adam, has decided to get married. Mr. Spade (“Just Shoot Me”) has a gift for playing wise-cracking cynics and can be quite funny. A ditsy young waitress explains why she left the Midwest. “You moved from Ohio to New York to become an actress?” he says flatly. “Wow, that’s a great plan. I’m surprised more girls don’t do that.”

But some of his lines are too canned. When he dismisses his best friend’s sappy behavior as “so gay,” as he does in the pilot, he is using one of the most overused gags of sitcoms straining to be hip.

Mr. Spade, who is no longer boyishly slim and here sports a goatee and ghastly leather jackets, is wisely set up as more of a cautionary tale than a role model. And that may well be CBS’s subliminal message to its core audience. As men get older, their efforts to seduce sexy young women look seedy and sad — prompted less by an élan vital than Viagra.

Marriage may seem like just another form of assisted living, but there is even less to be said for assisted swinging.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

CBS, tonight at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central time.

Tom Hertz, Jack Giarraputo and Doug Robinson, executive producers. Produced by Happy Madison Productions and CBS Paramount Network Television in association with Sony Pictures Television.

WITH: Oliver Hudson (Adam), Bianca Kajlich (Jennifer), Megyn Price (Audrey), David Spade (Russell), Patrick Warburton (Jeff) and Lauren Stamile (Karen).

A Review from Entertainment Weekly

TV Review
Rules of Engagement
B
By Gillian Flynn

Men are oafish, smelly, barely sensate creatures who never do anything instinctually thoughtful and must be trained like dent-headed monkey-slobs to perform even the most basic of tasks. This is my primary objection to ''couples comedies'': They insist that men are idiots, and that women, perforce, are eye-rolling harridan-saints who nag and hector their husbands, yet ultimately understand their limitations. Monkey-slobs drink too much beer and don't appreciate things like art, but that's to be expected because they're so dumb. The entire scenario is as old as the hair scarf of Andy Capp's wife Flo, reeking of cigarette smoke and dead dreams and ridicule. And maybe ham salad.

Rules of Engagement, CBS' latest offering to the genre, follows two couples. One pair, Adam and Jennifer, has just gotten engaged (The Mountain's Oliver Hudson and Vanished's Bianca Kajlich); the other, Jeff and Audrey, has been married for over a decade (The Tick's Patrick Warburton and Megyn Price, who already served four years in marital purgatory on Grounded for Life). Sooooo one duo still has lots of sex and the other, less. It's funny because it's true! Or it's not that funny at all. Rules is similar to Fox's grimly unamusing comedy 'Til Death, but it has one major advantage: deadpan, rubbery Patrick Warburton. In Rules, he plays his married version of Puddy on Seinfeld, which enables him to get laughs out of used-up jokes like, Men don't like foreplay but they really like football. ''Be ready for sex more than three minutes before SportsCenter,'' he advises his wife after she complains about the briefness of their encounters. This mountain-size dude with a voice from a beef commercial and the cockiness of a cologne salesman makes a few of the gags work through sheer force of personality. And as the token womanizing best friend, Russell, David Spade pops up like a rangy meerkat, and swipes a few laughs before scuttling away.

But the central problem remains: These comedies are based on shortcomings and disappointment. And unless their writing is as frank as Roseanne or as slightly surreal as Curb Your Enthusiasm, the shows are less amusing than depressing. Sure, the guy comes through in the end (the lug lets his wife shop, for instance) and the girl suffers through the silliness (thanks to a bottle of wine and some new shoes). But are we all truly that quietly desperate and deeply, deeply boring? Why not a fresher take — of the Thin Man variety — with a clever couple who actually doted on each other, who bantered rather than mocked? It would require nimbler writing and a much cheerier outlook. But it would be nice to think that men and women had more interesting topics of conversation than mortgages and forgotten birthdays. C-

A Review from Entertainment Weekly
Published on September 4, 2007

TV Preview
Rules of Engagement
More 9:30-10 PM · CBS · Returns Sept. 24

What's the secret of Rules' existence in this sitcom-slim era? ''This is a very dude-like comedy that fits very well with Two and a Half Men,'' says exec producer Tom Hertz. ''David Spade, some people love, some people don't, but he's just plain funny. Patrick Warburton is great.'' For the second season, says Hertz, ''we're going to stick to nuts-and-bolts relationship things. Adam [Oliver Hudson] and Jennifer [Bianca Kajlich] will decide to make a sex tape and learn the fantasy in your head is better than the reality. Jeff [Warburton] is going to have a snoring problem that causes a lot of conflict.'' Speaking of snores, Hertz adds that ''David Spade had some interesting things going on in his personal life — he knows a lot of ladies, some of whom we might like to have on.'' Did someone say Heather Locklear? Woo-hoo! She'll pop by for two episodes.

For the Official Site of Rules of Engagement go to http://www.rulesofengagement-tv.com/

For the Official Bianca Kajlich Website go to http://www.biancakajlich.com/

For the Megyn Price Picture Gallery go to http://www.watt-up.com/j_gallery/Megyn_Price/Megyn_Price.html

For the Official Website of David Spade go to http://www.davidspade.com/