vexer
Since: Jul, 2013
01/15/2016 00:00:00
I thought this show was pretty good, admittedly I never even heard of the comic strip until recently(I learned about this series due to being a fan of TV Trash). I think it's a shame this show didn't last longer.
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Made Way Before It's Time
First of all you should know that Baby Blues is a parenting comic strip (running since the late 90s and still going.) This review is about the tv show by Warner Brothers that is loosely based on the comic strip. As a long-time fan of the comic strip, I did enjoy the idea of seeing Zoe and Hammie on tv (don't get your hopes up though, Hammie is not in the tv show.)
The writing is excellent, with good morales (the "good" boys, as opposed to the bad ones, do get the girl in the end) and funny characters. However, the fandom seems split between whether or not the Bittermans (who were not in the comic strip) should have had more screen time or less. Admittedly, they were funnier than Darryl and Wanda and baby Zoe in the tv show.
The problem was that they put Zoe as a baby. I know that the third Mac Phereson child, Wren, wasn't born in the show's time, but I think Hammie was a baby and Zoe was a toddlar. I'm curious as to why they chose to put Zoe in as a baby instead.
Unsurprisingly, the Baby Blues comic strip writers (Kirkman and Scott) had little to do with the show's writing. In fact, at the last minute, Warner Brothers was going to change the name to "Bluesville" (they were afraid teenagers/young adults wouldn't watch a show with the word "Baby" in it) until Rick and Scott heard about it and stopped them.
The Christmas episode is the only episode that seems lifted from the comic strip, with many of the strip's early jokes added in word-for-word. But even as cheesy as that episode was, it was my favorite because it was the only one that stayed true to the strip.
Many new characters were added (even though the comic strip itself had background characters) and the roles of Darryl and Wanda were almost reversed! Wanda was the stay-at-home mom, cook of the house, and neat-freak in the comic strip, with Darryl as the relaxed, come-home-from-work-exhausted dad. Although I appreciate a gender-role-reversal if done well, I think they should have stuck with the strip's characters' personalities instead of making Darryl a neat-freak and Wanda somewhat careless (she only seemed to be a neat-freak because she was scared of Darryl's reactions.)
Lastly, I think it would have been better if it was written now instead of then, because of the characters ages now.