Men of a Certain Age, airing at 10 p.m. Mondays on cable's TNT network and premiering Dec. 7, 2009, is the brainchild of Romano, who has spent most of the last five years since his top-rated sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond ended production immersed in writing, producing and shopping this one-hour series with former Raymond executive producer Mike Joyce. It was intended for HBO, which inexplicably passed on the project after the Writers' Guild of America strike was settled in 2008, opening the way for TNT to acquire the program.
Men is a contemplative drama laced with comedy that follows the lives of three distinctly different men, best friends since college, as they navigate the unexpected life changes that come with middle age. In a sense, it is the male variation on Sex and the City.
Ray Romano's Character Has Marital Woes; Scott Bakula's Terry Is Fancy Free
Romano stars as Joe, a neurotic, socially awkward husband and father of two. (In other words, almost an exact reproduction of the personality he parlayed into a successful standup comedy act and the inspiration for his character of sportswriter Ray Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond.) He's currently separated from his wife, and has been living in an extended-stay hotel so long while trying to decide where to relocate – and hoping to reconcile his marriage – that fellow hotel lodgers refer to him as a "regular."
Joe abandoned his dream of becoming a professional golfer many years ago to provide for his family. Instead, he opened "Joe's Party Depot," selling balloons, piñatas, decorations and other party supplies to happy families and their children. Out on his own, he is slowly succumbing to the gambling addiction that contributed to the breakup of his marriage in the first place.
Bakula, the dashing, versatile star of such series as Star Trek: Enterprise, The New Adventures of Old Christine and (for viewers of a certain age) Quantum Leap, plays Terry, a struggling actor and the die-hard bachelor of the group. Terry refuses to completely relinquish his carefree, laid-back college mentality, and his skirt-chasing ways are half-admired, half-ridiculed by his pals. He's working part-time as a temp at a CPA agency populated by oddball personalities while fighting the nagging feeling that his acting career may be falling victim to his advancing years, as casting directors begin searching for men who are like Terry, only younger.
Andre Braugher Portrays a Self-Loathing Auto Dealer
The most fully realized character, however, is Owen Thoreau (he even has a last name) as portrayed by Braugher, who personified smug self-confidence as Det. Frank Pembleton in the '90s cop classic Homicide: Life on the Streets and more recently turned in memorable performances in the short-lived CBS series Hack and the motion picture Stephen King's The Mist. Thoreau is an overweight, diabetic, dispirited car salesman, working for his domineering father (the wonderful character actor Richard Gant) who demands that Owen "prove" he's worthy to take over the family's Chevy dealership someday.
Feeling relentless stress and competition from the dealership's cocky, aggressive top salesperson (Brian J. White), Owen feels trapped in a no-win situation: a job he can't stand, working for a man he never will be able to please, but a job he needs to take care of his wife, Melissa (Lisa Gay Hamilton, ex of The Practice), two bratty kids and his never-ending home improvements.
"You know what I do all day?" he laments to Melissa in the series' third episode. "I make my living making hardworking people spend more than they have, and they hate me for it."
Melissa: "They don't hate you."
"You're going to look me in the eye and tell me people don't hate car salesmen?"
"They don't hate you. They hate the idea of you."
Men of a Certain Age Needs Time to Develop
The three buds meet for meals at Norm's Diner and take long walks together in the California hills to discuss their various issues and try to make sense of their changing world, but there is less of the good-natured wisecracking and stinging putdowns than one might expect from men who have known each other for so long.
One also might expect a series from the mind of the man who inspired the funniest situation comedy of the 21st century to generate laugh-a-minute comic pacing. It doesn't. Men of a Certain Age is an intelligent, introspective effort with the humor arising naturally from the characters, but with three lead characters for the scripts to service we don't have enough of the players' personalities revealed to us in the early episodes for the comedic passages to be truly effective.
Men offers great promise, but needs to hope female viewers will flock to catch a glimpse of how the male mind functions, and that both male and female audiences will allow the show time to develop and expand its central characters. After all, great relationships aren't built in a few weeks.
For more information on Men of a Certain Age, visit the TNT Web site at www.tnt.tv/series/menofacertainage/.
Jimmy McFarlin - Hello there! My name is Jimmy McFarlin, and like my wife likes to say, I have the experience of an old man and the enthusiasm of a young ...
