Ninth and final season of The Drew Carey Show revolves primarily around the relationship of Drew and Kelley. After the unfortunate attempt at wedding in the finale of the previous season Drew remains heartbroken for a while, but quickly realizes his feelings for Kelly, and the fact that they are mutual. They start dating, and over the course of the season go through the whole nine yards, including such milestones as out-of-wedlock pregnancy, several proposals, and preparations for the wedding. Other significant story drivers of the seasons were Drew’s father’s death, after he fell off the roof and then died in hospital, – it led to Drew’s mother temporarily moving in with him; and Steve abandoning Mimi and his son Gus, which led to Mimi moving in with Drew also – that is, until she started dating again, and eventually moved in with Larry. At some point the Never-Ending-Store.com went under, which forced Drew to look for employment elsewhere. Oswald hurt himself, sued some company that could’ve been held responsible, and used the settlement money to buy into the Warsaw tavern, effectively becoming a bartender and owner. Lewis went through a number of girlfriends, and ended up with Kelly’s mother after she left her husband shortly before Kelly’s wedding. In the finale Kelly gives birth. For some unknown reason the order of episodes is mixed up – the production order is different from that it was viewed in; the correct order can be found in Wikipedia, and it would be wise to re-order the episodes in accordance with that schedule.

The quality of the season is mediocre – the show has never been fascinating, and this final installment bears clear signs of near death: some members of the cast are only partially employed (such as Ryan Stiles), while others disappear pretty much completely without a good reason (such as John Carroll Lynch) – not to mention Kate, who was never even mentioned, as if she got erased from everybody’s memory; the weird mix-up with the episodes order is most likely a negligence, meaning the network stopped caring; and all in all there is a spirit of expiration and despair is floating in the air.

The humor is no better than before, but no worse also. The acting is, give or take, the same level, although the shift in the conflict arrangement (like the change in the Mimi-Drew relationship) spoils the vibe significantly.

Generally speaking, the season is okay, but nothing particularly special, and definitely nothing that makes it worth choosing this show over all the other possibilities.

As for the show on the whole, it’s a normal sitcom – you can watch it, or you can skip it, won’t make a lot of difference. There are surely some fun moments, but the same is true for lots of other comedies, some of which are much more fun, frankly speaking.

Names and figures

In its 8th season The Drew Carey Show underwent a significant rebranding, so to say. The Winford-Lauder store is no more, and, correspondingly Drew no longer works as a personnel specialist. He scrapes by between jobs for a while, during which time has to sell his car, until she lands at one of the early dotcoms, a company called NeverEndingStore.com, which is a sort of online supermarket, where he starts working as an internal expedite analyst. For a few months he has no idea what the job is about (not even what the name means), but eventually manages to refocus. Kate finds herself a husband while visiting New York, and then moves with him to Guam; she is only casted in the first couple of episodes, and is absent for the rest of the season – so much so, she never gets mentioned anymore, even when it comes to important events. In her stead a young girl named Kelly becomes a part of the gang; Kelly is a little younger than Drew, who used to babysit her back in the day (as well as his brother Steve). After a nasty divorce, she finds herself lost in life, and Drew offers her a place to stay until she could get back on her feet; she takes a job in the Warsaw tavern as a waitress. Kate’s marriage strikes Drew so bad, he decides that he should find himself a wife as well; at that, he decides to solve all the technical issues of the process (such as the venue, the invitations, the band, etc.), and only after that find a bride. That search becomes an obsession of his: he goes through several dozens of girlfriends, most of them shown in passing, and the most notable being Amy, who liked to wear squirrel costume during sex; Robin, one of Larry’s matches; Dom, a girl Drew met on the bus; Elaine, a lesbian daughter of the priest, and, finally, Lily from New Orleans, who moves to Seattle for Drew and even goes as far as the wedding. Simultaneously with the bridal search both Kelly and Drew gradually realize their feelings for each other, but never do anything about them. Oswald blows the nursing test and eventually gets employed at Drew’s company as a delivery guy. Lewis remains pretty much as he was. Steve cheats on Mimi, who throws him out of the house; it takes them a while to reconcile, but they got there in the end. Mimi (who also works at the same company Drew does) switches the heat of her anger from Drew to Traylor, the leading designer of the company, who behaves all posh and arrogant. Also, Drew almost becomes the star of the Superbowl ad, but instead becomes a meme Puking Drew; he gets an old Rolls-Roys as a gift, and almost breaks off with Lewis over it; he makes sort of friends with the bus driver; almost loses Speedy to a cancer patient; and undergoes a colonoscopy. Mr. Wich appears a few times, but stops being a major part of the cast. There were no live episodes, nor April Fools’ ones; all the episodes shown were within the main narrative line.

This is a pretty interesting season, maybe of the most notable so far. First of all, it is very commendable how the authors handled the inevitable change – instead of trying to mask it they embraced the concept of change, and overpowered the losses (such as Christa Miller’s departure) with even bigger, flashier alterations. I have to say, this works pretty well, especially considering that the replacement (Cynthia Watros as Kelly) was more than successful, and that the humor was also pretty great. The reflection of the transformed reality, in particular, all the Internet stuff, such the dotcoms and the programming, must have been rather original back in 2002, and surely seems refreshing even now – that is, if comparing the show to its coevals.

The execution is good; there was no lasting effect of the losses on the quality of the show in general. Now I’m actually looking forward to seeing how they went off – I hope it was at least as decent as was this season.

Names and figures

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.

Names and figures

The 6th season of The Drew Carey Show preserved only one through-out storyline – that of Mimi Bobeck and Steve Carey going forward with all the family things. Over the course of the season Mimi carries a child, buys a house (next to the Warsaw tavern), gives birth, and also wins Kate’s share of Buzz Beer thus becoming Drew’s business partner. The Drew + Kate storyline, although continues with Drew proposing, quickly dissipates after they figure out that there is a stone wall in their relationship, which is the children issue – Drew wanted them, and Kate didn’t. So they break up, and after a period of moderate chaos, go back to being friends. On the professional side Drew gets fired from the store in the beginning of the season and spends some time working in a school cafeteria after Mimi bombs his dream job with a bad reference. He manages to make his way back later by marrying Mr. Wick, who needs this for visa purposes – they remain married through-out the season, and go through a couple of immigration checks successfully. Later still Drew gets promoted to director of personnel, and at the end of the season gets tasked with preparing and opening a new women-only story after which he is supposed to become its manager. Mimi gets Drew’s old job, but is not satisfied with it, so she pulls a few pranks in the result of which Drew ends up in the psychiatric asylum, and she gets to manage the store. Kate finds a dream-job in the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame; after their breakup with Drew she starts dating soon enough, with her first boyfriend having a bad blood incident with Drew. Drew’s uncle dies and leaves Steve some inheritance; he leaves some to Drew as well, but he blows it. Drew entertains an idea of becoming a scout master, but that fails because of his fake marriage. The gang attends a festival of beer and brings a bear there. Oswald and Lewis go to war with Santa, and milk snakes for income. Drew briefly works as a land salesman, which results in Lewis losing $8 grand. Drew gets into an accident and spends 2 weeks in a coma (at about the same time Mimi gives birth). Drew gets to name the baby; becomes legally dead, spends insurance money, and becomes bad boy Kyle. Drew hits mr. Wick. Steve temporarily gets Mimi’s job. Lewis turns out to be a bad guy. Drew and the gang get to deliver a bunch of easter promotion parcels in one day. Drew competes for being possible legal guardian of the baby with Mimi’s rich cousin. He also dates an activist, but is forced to break up with her. The season contains 2nd installment of Live show, and 4th installment of the April’s Fool’s What’s Wrong episode.

So far the season is the worst of them all. The show seems to be losing focus – the story breaks up into almost isolated pieces with the only thing stitching them together being the network of characters and the aforementioned Mimi storyline, which is not nearly enough. Even worse than that, the quality of some of the stories drops below the level of admissibility and good taste, which shifts the overall quality statistics significantly towards the negative values. The episode with the bear alone is absolutely shameful, and there is also the pair of episodes about the coma, and a great many separate scenes scattered across the season that are no better than that. Finally, the lack of adequate response from Drew on what Mimi does starts to seems really weird – she continuously raises the stakes, now hurting him for real with her pranks, yet he does nothing to repay her except for the ordinary skirmishes that are starting to get really old.

The second Live episode is slightly better than the first; apparently, some of the impromptu themes were rehearsed beforehand. The what’s-wrong episode is pretty much the same as the others, i.e. nothing really interesting.

The execution is more or less the same as before – nothing significant changed there, except, perhaps, that it becomes more and more clear that the show will probably never evolve to be really good, to grade up to its competitors of the time, such as Friends and Seinfeld, and Roseanne. Still, there are 3 more seasons to go, so not all the hope is lost yet.

Names and figures

The 5th season of The Drew Carey Show is built around 2 major developments. The first is that Drew’s relationship with Sharon ends very soon, and then Kate realizes that she has feelings for Drew, same as he does for her. After a bit of dancing around, they commence their relationship taking it slow – the sex did not happen for a number of reason until the very end of the season. Certain hiccups notwithstanding, things go rather smooth in that storyline. The second development is that natural evolution of the relationship between Steve and Mimi leads them to getting married, after which they start trying for a baby, which concludes successfully also by the end of the season. Apart from that: Mimi gets herself a fan – mini-Mimi; Buzz Beer gets a website, which only results in busting of Lewis and Oswald for selling to minors – the gang temporarily gets sentenced to staying apart; the gang goes to their high-school reunion; Drew tries to fake a physical; gets arrested for attempted murder of Mimi; holds the voting in his house because of the pothole; becomes a star of his own promotion show alongside Isabel; Mimi reveals to be married once before – to a rock-star; Drew hosts rehearsal dinner for Steve’s wedding, after which uncle Alfred dies; Mimi gets dragged from her honeymoon; Drew tries out a trench coat; Lewis tries to date mini-Mimi; the store gets the new owners; Drew gets an assistant; the gang wins a new car in a contest after Lewis totals Oswald’s old one; Lewis starts dating Leslie; Mimi gets fired; Drew strains his penis; and hires his ex (Wendy) for an assistant; Kate almost becomes a court-recorder; Drew gets tasked with hiring a new regional manager; and gets promoted to manage the store – but only until Mimi sabotages his so that he gets denoted back to his old position; Mr. Wick briefly gets fired, but comes back rather soon; Drew almost sells the Buzz Beer; Kate gets job at catering; the gang gets temporarily allergic to alcohol; Oswald and Lewis share a son – Robert; Kate competes with Speedy for control over Drew; Drew organizes a softball team; and Kate learns that there is a club of her ex-boyfriends. The season features 3rd installation of the ‘What’s Wrong With This Episode’ format, as well as the 1st instance of ‘Drew Live’. The final episode is a farcical representation of the show’s team’s frustration at not being nominated for Emmy.

The overall level of the show remains more or less the same, i.e. medium funny. I felt that the transition to Kate being romantically interested in Drew was artificial, forced, which feeling comes from this development not being nurtured long enough. The rest, however, is quite alright – pretty much the same thing that’s been going on from the beginning, only with new turns and, sometimes, faces. The errors episode seems just as silly as before. The live episode seems a little less so, but not entirely free of silliness also – I think, it wasn’t a good idea at all to introduce on-the-spot improvisations, for it only showed that most of the cast members are not very good at it.

I can understand why Drew and his co-stars were so disappointed with not being Emmy-acknowledged, but I understand why they weren’t, too. The show, although fun and funny, was never brilliant – not once since it started there was an episode that can be deemed outstanding; season 5 continued this unfortunate tradition.

So, yes, the show keeps its ground – and on the one hand not getting worse is good, but this also means that they are not getting better, either. And considering how many episodes have already been made, I fear this might never change.

Names and figures

In the 4th season of The Drew Carey Show there was a number of notable stories. Drew restores his old band and starts doing a permanent gig in a hotel, during which time he dyes his hair blond, and has a groupy-girlfriend named Darcy, who was not aware of his day job. Soon enough Drew decided to quit the band and  focus on the career; Darcy ran away as soon as she found out. Later on he went to night school, where he met an older woman named Celia; they dated and even moved in together, but it didn’t work out because she reminded him of his mother way too much. Then the senior officers of Winford-Lauder decided to expand and buy out Drew’s neighbourhood, but promised him things they weren’t able to go through, and so Drew hit the bricks and refused to move out, and soon the investors pulled the plug on the project; as a consequence, they rented out some of the houses to the store employees, including Larry and Wick. Drew met a girl named Tracy, and so did Oswald and Lewis – all three of them dated her for a while, before going to open competition, which Lewis won. Even before Tracy Sharon the handywoman re-appeared in Drew’s life, but was dating somebody else; then she broke up with that man, and used Drew as a rebound, which soon developed into full-fledged relationship. Kate quit her job at the store and for the better part of the season was on her own, giving massages and whatnot; later she dated The Disciplinarian, a wrestler who promoted Buzz Beer, which led to a spike in the demand for the beer; later still she became Mrs. Lauder’s personal assistant, and grew to hate her job so much she quit it at the first opportunity. Oswald went into product testing and installed breast implants; he wanted to use the money earned to help out his mother, but she didn’t need it, and so he paid out his debts to friends, which they used to buy Drew a new car. Lewis got promoted at his job. Mimi and Steve fell in love with each other and started dating. Wick was caught using drugs and went into a rehab. Also in the season: Drew uncovered a conspiracy against him; got himself a home PC; tries cyber dating (on-line dating) and happens to do it with Mimi; crashes Nicky’s wedding and dances a kozatskiy dance; gets sent to China by Mimi as a prank; organizes a pajama party with models, but they didn’t show up; gives Speedy up for operation on his eyes; fires Steve; discovers an affair in his family; goes on a retail convention in Chicago; starts a con game with Mimi (bowling); and helps Oswald’s mother to open up a salon. Oswald becomes an angel of death; Kate gets hired to house sit with children, and gets a taste of real family. In the season’s finale the Dutch masters of Winford-Lauder decided to blow the building up and build a parking lot in its place, but Drew told it to everybody, and that plan failed. The season also contains a special episode with dancing flashbacks, and another ‘what’s wrong’ thing.

This is a pretty good season – I think, the 3rd one was slightly better, but only a little bit. This is an important season, too, for here starts a storyline that seems to be consistent till the end of the show – I’m talking, of course, about Mimi and Steve.

The development of the season is more or less logical and consistent, both internally and with the earlier stories. The Buzz Beer thing is slowly fading away – it was used in just one episode. Drew’s relationships were quite diverse, and rather interesting. The return of Sharon seems to me like a good thing. The overall quality of the narrative and of the humor are approximately at the level of season 3.

I didn’t like the flashback dancing episode – I generally dislike dancing in this show – but the fact that it was all concentrated in just one piece makes it easier. The episode with the errors seems just as silly as the first of its kind; I hope they will abandon this practice after this.

All in all, the show now definitely seems worthwhile – it’s funny enough, and steady in its quality and style; and the writers proved they could find interesting stories to tell

Names and figures

In the 3rd season of The Drew Carey Show new neighbours move in into the house next to Drew’s – Janet and Greg Clemence. Their realtor named Nicki agrees to go out with Drew and becomes his girlfriend, which relationship lasts for the better part of the season, culminating in an engagement. The wedding, however, does not happen, because Nikki realizes that Drew has an influence on her that she does not care for, and on the day she meets Drew’s parents, she calls everything off. The second significant storyline of the season is the relationship between Kate and Oswald; it goes hidden from Drew for some time, and evolves naturally for the whole season straight, with the couple’s wedding being the theme of the season’s finale. This relationship makes Drew realize that he has feelings for Kate. The third major theme of the season is about Mimi first taking advantage of mr. Wick’s fear of the storm, and alter suing the store for sexual harassment, which was initially Wick’s idea, but then turned into Mimi’s personal mission. Other than that: Drew tries to lose weight with Vitabeer and ends up with himself on a billboard; forms singles union; lets Larry move into his house and regrets it the minute DEA arrests him; buys back his house from the government; throws a bankruptcy party; goes on a diet, but ends up sleep-eating; wins a batmobile; shaves a boss’s dog and raises money to replace it by going full monty; finds out that his elder brother Steve is a cross-dresser; enters the battle of the bands; volunteers in a nursing home; goes to the Bahamas with Kate; is forced to invite new investor into the Buzz beer – his new neighbour – after the tank blows up; attends a birthday party for Mrs. Lauder; mourns the demise of his fridge Betsy; models planes; accidentally takes experimental sex drugs on St. Patrick’s day; gets to rule the store; meets Sharon the handyman; hires dating consultant; allows for his cousin Christine to date his boss; gets promoted to staff the new stores of the company; and sells out his yard for a neighbour’s horse. Lewis starts dating a guinea-pig girl named Pinky. An episode with intentional errors intended as an audience contest experiment is featured for the first time.

It would seem like the show is getting better – and on many levels at that. First, there are recurrent stories that kind of hold the season together as an organic whole; there are three of them, each takes up different volume and expanse, but combined together they do produce some kind of seamlessness. Second, the writers of the show are definitely loosening up, and start experimenting with stories and with formats – the errors contest episode, albeit not the most successful idea, would be the most obvious example here, but there are quite a number of others, most much more subtle. And third – as subjective as it may seem, the humor is also getting better; plus, there is a new title sequence (the best of the three so far), and much less dancing (thank god).

Personally, I loved the Duffy Duck sequence the most – besides the overall upsurge of story quality, of course. The execution is at least the same level as it used to be, and – in certain places – perhaps better.

All in all, the extended length notwithstanding (for usually that would’ve meant the drop in quality), the show progressed quite a bit, with a clear promise to keep on progressing.

Names and figures

In the 2nd season of The Drew Carey Show Jay moves to another state pursuing a business opportunity, and leaves Kate behind. Drew composes a harsh evaluation report on Lisa, which offends her, and so Drew suggests living together to make up for it. After a week they break up. A few months later Lisa gets engaged and then elopes with her fiance. Drew goes through several dates, including Bonny, the zoning inspector, who almost shuts down the Buzz Beer; and Diane, a waitress in Las Vegas, whom Drew inadvertently got married to, and stayed like that to help her out.  Drew lays claim to a store manager position, but instead Nigel Wick, an Englishman, becomes his boss; helps his school days bully Simon, which ends up in firing the guy; keeps one of Lisa’s dogs named Speedy, who is disabled and has to walk with wheels; dresses up as Mimi for Halloween; plays the Devil for Kate’s soul; mourns the death of his music teacher, who was also his first woman; makes a marriage pact with Kate; thinks he didn’t get invited to a party; agrees for his parents to move to his house, while himself staying at Oswald and Lewis’s at first, and then at Kate’s; films some training videos for the company, but doesn’t get a promotion; gets a new car, but then loses it due a bounced check; gets scammed by a woman named Kira; fights for the sky-walk and even goes on a hunger-strike; gathers money for the operation for Speedy and pretends to be gay; almost lets Earl to take over his life; competes for a place at the board of directors, but loses; celebrates 3000 days at his cubicle, which gets renamed to Drewbicle; undertakes a trip to New York, where he meets Donald Trump. Oswald wins a boxing title, and gets courted by a man; and works as an elf together with Lewis. Mimi gets temporarily re-assigned to the basement, but then returns; becomes the snow queen on Thanksgiving parade; sells cosmetics in the network marketing scheme; and briefly runs day-care center while Faith is in the hospital. Kate dyes her hair blond; tries out female friends; gets a ferret; and dates Drew’s boss. Lewis gets a rich girlfriend and works hard to keep up with her demands; together with Oswald moves to an apartment above the Warsaw tavern; and gets hit by a car. Buzz Beer goes out of business, on account of which the friends arrange a party, but it turns out to be too successful, and so they decide to keep brewing after all. Then they have to compete with a different but similar brand (Cup beerchino); get an ice-cream truck to deliver the stuff; and come up with a number of promotion campaigns, including giving out dates with Kate.

This season is a little worse than the 1st one. It has more noise in it (i.e. jokes that are no longer readable and/or funny), there is a lot of dancing (I don’t know what were they thinking, but it looks stupid), and it generally feels much longer than a comedy should feel. The finale seems completely random: while the trip to NYC in and of itself is nice attempt, the execution is messy, unbalanced and not funny, plus there is a dance-off in the end that seems totally misplaced, as if the writers has been distressingly thinking for a long time what to do there, and that was the best they were able to come up with.

There, of course, was still a lot of funny stuff there, but it seems like less than before, which brings up a tendency I don’t like. But then again, judging by the rate it is being downloaded the show is quite popular to this day, which tells me it might get better than this.

The execution is alright – more or less. Would do for a ’90s sitcom, I guess.

So far there hasn’t been anything brilliant, – nothing that strikes deep in the heart and leaves a mark on the memory as well as on the soul. A plenty of medium-good stuff is nice, sure, but it still doesn’t sum up to anything greater than medium – which the further the more seems to be leaning towards mediocre. All in all, it’s okay, but I’m starting to doubt if it will ever live up to the expectations.

Names and figures

The Drew Carey Show is a major US sitcom comedy that ran for 9 whole seasons between 1995 and 2004. It tells about Drew Carey, assistant director of personnel in a store Louder’s, and his friends since school – Kate, Oswald and Lewis – as well as several other characters, including Jay, another school friend, Lisa, a romantic interest of Drew, Jules, Drew’s neighbour, and Mimi, Drew’s sworn enemy. In season one Drew finds a job for Kate in the cosmetics department rejecting Mimi Bobek, who also applied for it. Kate starts working at the store, and Mimi gets hired as Mr. Bell’s personal assistant so that she won’t sue the company. Soon after Drew hires Lisa to work on the displays around the store; and although they are attracted to each other from get go, they have to suppress their feelings because the company rules dictate that people from management cannot date employees; when that doesn’t work out, they date each other secretly, constantly sneaking around, which causes a good deal of frustration to both of them. Over the course of the season Mimi and Drew compete at bugging each other, pulling pranks and trying to hurt the other party in various ways. At some point Jay shows up in Drew’s life, about which Kate feels very negatively, but then takes that one step that separates hatred from love. In the finale of the season it becomes known that a Dutch company is buying the store, and a lot of people are going to be fired, so Drew goes into business with his friends, and starts making beer, including the coffee-flavoured kind, but later it turns out that everybody below management are going to stay, and Drew also manages to save his job. Otherwise: Drew fires mr. Bell’s lover; attaches a funny cartoon to the memo, and gets sued for that by one of the employees; coaches girls’ basketball team; almost dates Janet, Lewis’s sister; goes to the Rolling Stones concert; almost becomes a personal assistant for Mrs. Louder, the owner of the store; celebrates his birthday; gets introduces to a racist club by his dad; fires Earl, the crazy guy; trains Mr. Bell’s nephew to be his replacement; survives the storm and goes to the church; gets Mimi for an assistant; asks out his hairdresser Suex; has to decide between Lisa and Kate for the new opening (personal shopper department); makes a commercial for the story with animals, which works, until it backfires. Kate comes up with an idea of day spa, and mr. Bell puts one of his lovers in charge of that; becomes one of the leaders of the employees strike; sells a giant bottle of perfume for less than it costs; invites everybody to dine with her mother on her birthday; and almost breaks up with Jay. Mimi charms Drew’s father; and joins forces with Drew against mr. Bell’s nephew. Oswald goes through a number of low-qualification jobs, including working at cosmetics department of the store during the strike, post-office, and drugs testing. Lewis, who works as a janitor, almost becomes Oswald’s legal guardian.

So, this here is a not so bad comedy. Actually, it’s pretty good most of the time. I have some reservation, of course, but they are mostly related to the format itself rather than to the quality of the implementation. There are also some re-setting tendencies that irritate me a little bit – that is, most of the stories are one episode long, and so the next would start as if nothing even happened at all. Ultimately, though, it’s a minor issue.

Important here is that the humor is quite good, the characters are funny and relatable – although there could have been more Lewis and Oswald-specific stories, whereas these two characters are mostly playing supporting roles. I really loved the chemistry between Drew and Mimi – that spicy, confrontational relationship is exactly what’s needed to fetch out all the benign qualities of the show, which otherwise would’ve made it all too goody-goody. All the major characters are quite interesting and nice to follow.

The execution is pretty much what can be expected from the 1990s comedy, with occasional curious and relatively unusual (for the times at least) devices.

All in all I enjoyed the show quite a bit, and I have a feeling that in the following season it would become better – there are definitely some preconditions for such evolution.

Names and figures