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Poster: Mr. Television
(see this users gallery) Alright Already aired on the WB from September 1997 until July 1998.
Carol( Carol Leifer)was a manhungry thirtysomething optometrist in Miami coping with an iffy social life and a disfunctional family.Alvin and Mariam ( Jerry Adler, Mitzi McCall)were her retired, overbearing, perpetually, squabbling parents. Jessica ( Stacy Galina), her spaced-out younger sister, and Vaughn ( Maury Sterling), her lazy unemployed brother, were living with her folks in a senior citizens complex while she had her own apartment. Renee( Amy Yasbeck), her partner in Collins Avenue Optical, was Carol's best friend and confidante- the 2 of them did the singles bar scene together. Carol was so serious about guys she never seemed to find one, while Renee, a free spirit, had an active social life.
A Review By Variety
Sep 5, 1997
Alright Already
((Sun. (7), 9:30-10 p.m., WB))
By TONY SCOTT
Filmed at CBS Radford by Brillstein-Grey Communications. Exec producers, Carol Leifer, Stephen Engel, Brad Grey; consulting producer, Dawn DeKeyser; producer, John Ziffren; director, Rob Schiller; creator, Leifer; writer, Leslie Caveny.
Cast: Carol Leifer, Amy Yasbeck, Stacy Galina, Maury Sterling, Mitzi McCall, Jerry Adler, Gina Hecht, Bruce Nozick, James Patrick Stuart, Peggy Blow, Chris Cote, Karen Stone, Abby Palanker.
Writer-performer Carol Leifer squeezes uncomfortably into an uncomfortable sitcom in which she's bachelor girl Carol Lerner rooming with sassy best friend Renee (Amy Yasbeck). Hovering way, way in the background are faint shadows of "Rhoda" and "Mad About You"; otherwise it's sophomoric dialogue, antique plotting.
Scenes alternate between Carol and Renee's Miami apartment and Carol's parents' standard sitcom condo. Mother Miriam (Mitzi McCall) and father Alvin (Jerry Adler) harbor Carol's not-much brother Vaughn (Maury Sterling) and younger sister Jessica (Stacy Galina). Everyone cracks wise. Not funny, wise.
Optometrist Carol and Renee live across the hall from a couple who play music too loud, and Carol tells them she's got an infant who's trying to sleep. The neighbors buy it for a moment, but of course the truth comes out after appalling attempts at farce.
The family goes to a movie in a lamentable exercise in social comment on how folks behave in theaters; it's too true-to-life to be funny. Renee has a hoped-for boyfriend in the hospital with a broken leg; there're tasteless attempts at making a morphine-high amusing.
Good actors are squandered on the juve material and concept, but an unseen audience guffaws. Rob Schiller is credited with directing the spirited effort, but it's no feather in his cap or anywhere else. Tech credits are okay; "Alright Already" isn't.
A Review By The New Your Times
Single, With Lots of Nagging Relatives
By CARYN JAMES
Published: September 5, 1997
Remember the ''Seinfeld'' episode in which Jerry and Elaine visit his parents in Florida? Send Jerry packing, leave Elaine behind (which he actually threatened to do) and you have ''Alright Already,'' a potentially bright new sitcom created by and starring Carol Leifer as Carol Lerner, a 40-ish woman in South Beach coping with single life and a condo full of nagging relatives.
''Alright Already'' has a genuine, even dizzying ''Seinfeld'' pedigree. Ms. Leifer, once a ''Seinfeld'' writer and producer, was also the real-life model for Elaine. If her mannerisms seem familiar -- the tilt of the head, the hand gestures, the roll of her eyes all bring to mind Julia Louis-Dreyfus's character -- that's because Elaine got them from her in the first place.
There are other factors that give ''Alright Already'' the aura of an echo chamber. Carol Lerner seems heavily influenced by Rhoda Morgenstern, another whiny television heroine with an overbearing mother. But this still-uneven show is pointed in a lively and funny direction.
On Sunday's premiere episode, Carol can't get her noisy neighbors to turn down their music until she pretends she has a sleeping baby at home. The world's least convincing mother, she improvises the child's name. ''Bing!'' she calls him after hearing the elevator stop.
The original pilot episode, which will be shown sometime in the next weeks, is less focused but gives a better sense of the Lerner family, the show's comic center. Miriam and Alvin are the parents, who hear absolutely nothing their daughter says. Vaughn is Carol's younger brother, who tries to have a life apart from the family.
The funniest segments involve Carol's pretty younger sister, Jessica, who has moved in with her parents and is turning into a little old lady while still in her 20's. ''I don't like that Madonna,'' Jessica says. ''And the mouth on her.'' Carol's man-hungry best friend, Renee, is more predictable, and her scenes slow the show down.
The show needs time to take shape, but even now it is legions ahead of those lame sitcoms about single women that NBC has promoted with the grating slogan ''Must-She TV.'' Its cast is sharp; if its writing gets sharper, ''Alright Already'' could be the WB network's best hope yet for a hit.
To watch clips from Alright Already go to https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=alright+already+tv+series
For more on Almost Perfect go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alright_Already_(TV_series)
For an interview with Carol Leifer go to https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizadonnelly/2014/07/11/funny-women-an-interview-with-comedian-and-television-writer-carol-leifer/#206086927842
To go to the Official Carol Leifer website go to http://www.carolleifer.com/ |
� Date: Sat March 25, 2017 � Filesize: 63.3kb, 603.5kb � Dimensions: 759 x 884 �
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Keywords: Alright Already Cast (Links Updated 7/23/18)
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