In the 7th season of The Drew Carey Show Drew gets released from the lunatic asylum and, after a pause, gets back to work. He gets married to Nikki, who showed up divorced, and then – to Kate, and for a short while manages to balance between these two marriages (none of which is legal due to his earlier marriage to mr. Wick), but eventually it blows in his face, and both women live him. Nikki vanishes until the end of the season, and Kate gets over the whole thing in just a few episodes, so they become friends once again. The Winford-Lauder store changes hands twice over the course of the season: its first new owner dies of a heart attack on Halloween, before he could carry into effect his plans to promote Drew; after this things start going poorly; the management hires Christine, an efficiency expert (she dates Drew for a while); and then a 20% salary cut for all employees gets implemented, which forces Drew to look for a new job. He works briefly as a security guard, and then finds a great management job, but axes his own position, and comes back to the store again, where he gets appointed co-manager together with mr. Wick. At this point the store gets bought by a British company; its owner appoints his 19-years old daughter Milan a store president, and tasks Drew with training her. Later Drew dates Milan’s mother Lindsey, who gets the taste of poor life. Then the company goes broke, with Winford-Lauder store remaining the only asset they got left, and quickly it turns into ‘everything for 69 cents’ place. In the mid-season Steve leaves Mimi because of the harm she did to Drew, and it gets her a while to win him back. Mimi also apologizes to Drew and stops harassing him so badly. Kate builds a career at the Rock-n-Roll hall of fame, where she meets famous people and gradually gets promoted, which results in spending less time with her friends; she also discovers a recording with Elvis singing Jewish songs, but ruins it. Oswald and Lewis decide to build a house in the park, and spend a better part of the season doing it; they also build a terrible battle bot, temporarily work in an airport security, and bake cookies. Oswald falls in love with a nurse named Coleen, and starts training to become a nurse himself. Lewis continues working as a janitor at DrugCo, turns out to have IQ of 162, tries out an empathy drug, eats a human liver, and finds himself a date for his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. Also, Drew takes a ventriloquism class, drag races with Mimi to make life less boring; rents out a room to a gay couple; records a video resume; dates a lady cop; shoots Lewis; buys a telescope; fails to get to a birthday party in Europe; almost loses his house to a pack of wild dogs; gets hit by Steve; and gets his house invaded by a bold eagle. The gang beats the mothers in court after the list of porn website users gets leaked. In the finale Nikki comes back plotting revenge. The season includes 3rd installment of the live show, and a double episode with school-time flashback sketches. Buzz beer stops being a part of the story.
In general, this season is much better than the previous one, and, perhaps, one of the funniest on the show. It has improved in terms of the story: now there seems to be consequences to people’s actions, of which the most vivid example is the separation of Steve and Mimi. Overall development of the story is somewhat uneven and wild, but without any ungrounded lacunae or unjustified twists. The humor seems to be much, much better also. And – none of the stories here are terribly stupid, which was many times a case for previous season; except, maybe, the one with the wild dogs, but thanks to better jokes it doesn’t seem so awful either.
Unfortunately, even in this reformed state the show is still no match to its competitors of the time, which is probably why it still got no rewards and no nominations. I can only imagine how frustrated Carey was about this. Still, it’s a pretty great season – comparatively, that is, – at any rate, it’s entertaining and rather uplifting, which is the most you can demand from any comedy, I suppose.
The execution is more or less on the same level as before, maybe a little better. There were plenty of guest stars and new minor characters, most of whom were pretty good and interesting.
All in all, I’m kind of glad that I’m continuing watching the show – it may be disappointing at every now and then, but for the most part is worth the time spent.
Year: 2001-2002
Created by: Drew Carey and Bruce Helford
Directed by: Gerry Cohen, Bob Koherr, Sam Simon, Tommy Thompson, Shelley Jensen
Written by: David A. Caplan, Sam Simon, Bruce Rasmussen, Clay Graham, Les Firestein, Linda Teverbaugh, Mike Teverbaugh, Daniel O’Keefe, Keith Blanchard, Jana Hunter, Mitch Hunter, Julie Ann Larson, Terry Mulroy, Christy Jacobs White, Ed Lee, Adam Faberman, Vivien Mejia, Kristen Marvin
Performed by: Drew Carey, Diedrich Bader, Kathy Kinney, Ryan Stiles, Christa Miller, Craig Ferguson, John Carroll Lynch, Tim O’Rourke, Jane Morris, Kate Walsh, Marion Ross, Stanley Anderson, Adrienne Barbeau, Tammy Faye Bakker, Dakota and Ryan Williams, June Lockhart, John Ratzenberger, Richard Chamberlain, Micky Dolenz, Julia Duffy, Jenny McCarthy, Lemmy Kilmister, Adam West, Max Gail, Kathy Griffin, Jessica Cauffiel
Time: 9h24m (a. 27 episodes)
Entertaining quality: 4+ out of 5
Art quality: 4 out of 5
Links: (wiki)
®shoomow, 2018
Cinegmatic 