Vote for why you think it jumped
Day One
Demond Wilson is cast
Shark Bytes
This could have been a great show but nobody bothered to write any decent scripts. The producers were just trying to cash in on the original Odd Couple. What a shame because Ron Glass and Demond Wilson are really talented.
THE NEW ODD COUPLE was a great idea on paper that definitely lost something in the translation. This show jumped from day one for two reasons. One was the casting of Demond Wilson as Oscar. I don't know Wilson was bored or what, but he always looked like he was either embarrassed to be involved in this thing or he was just phoning it in. It was a shame too because Ron Glass was absolutely superb as Felix. The other reason it jumped from day one, as has already been mentioned, is that they were recycling scripts from the original show. The shows were written for Klugman and Randall and their dialogue was not meant to Glass and Wilson. If they just wanted to recycle scripts, why didn't they just rerun the original show or offer Jack and Tony the earth and the moon to return?
Talk about a show that COULD have been damn good--MAYBE great in time. Ron Glass is superb in anything! Demond...Demond...Demond....this handsome guy had the potential to be one of those great "funny straight men"--you saw that in the early years of Sanford, but even before that show ended, he started to phone in his performances. He was even worse here. Occasionally when BET or TV LAND shows a rerun, I try to watch, but can never get through an entire episode. I agree it might have worked if they had cast someone else opposite Ron (John Amos and Flip Wilson are just two who come to mind)
Jumped the shark from day one, and not because they recycled old scripts that were not tailored to the shows stars. Ron Harris and Demond Wilson simply didn't have any chemistry together, and even great scripts would not have been enough to overcome this obstacle. We never got the impression that these two guys would be life long friends and loved each other in spite of their many differences. If they had gotten, say, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor, who did create sparks together (remember California Suite?) the show could have worked.
They were rehashing old Odd Couple scripts for this show, so "Same character, different actor" would apply, wouldn't it? My recollection is that this show was created in the midst of a protracted writers' strike. No one was writing new material, so ABC just gave new actors old scripts to work with. Actually, the idea of Oscar and Felix as black men was a good one, and Ron Glass was a superb Felix. Demond Wilson, unfortunately, just wasn't a strong enough match as Oscar; someone like Robert Guillaume might have worked out better. And as talented as John Schuck is, he just couldn't erase our memories of Al Molinaro as Murray the Cop.
Back in 1982, when there was a female version of the play version of "The Odd Couple" on broadway, ABC got the idea to make a black version with Demond Wilson as Oscar and Ron Glass as Felix. There are two good things about this show...1> The theme song was an excellent update/remake of the classic theme, and 2> Ron Glass made an excellent Felix Unger. However...this show jumped the shark the minute the first episode started when they remade practically word for word the classic episode in which Felix accidentally rats out Oscar to the IRS. And this was the first episode of TNOC. I remember they changed small details, Felix was looking to get tickets to "Annie" and so forth, but the major jokes <Oscar reads the IRS letter. Felix : "Ah ha! They got ya!" Oscar : "Oh, thank God, this isn't as bad as I thought." Felix : "Oh? Why?" Oscar : "It's for you."> were completely the same. Not helping matters was the fact that Demond Wilson was practically sleepwalking through his part as Oscar, although as I understand he was undergoing personal problems at the time so this might not be his fault. Eventually they started to air 3 or 4 new storylines, but by this time no one was watching, and the show was cancelled only to show up from time to time on BET and TVLand a decade later.
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