The Odd Couple (2015) TV Review – Which is the Real Odd Couple Debate by: Money Train

After being kicked out of their houses by their wives, two friends try to share an apartment, but their ideas of housekeeping and lifestyles are as different as night and day…IMBD.com

CBS has two new “Odd Couple” type TV shows. One is the cop drama “Battle Creek” (2015) and the other is a sitcom which actually is called “The Odd Couple” and a direct remake of the classic CBS 70’s “The Odd Couple” (1970-1975) sitcom with Jack Klugman playing the sloppy, boorish and quick tempered Oscar Madison while Tony Randall played the stylish, neat and OCD natured Felix Unger. But this time someone dropped the ball in casting “Friends” alumnus Matthew Perry to be Oscar. Matthew is barely a good as the bad boy roommate Oscar and his only memorable role on the series so far is acting like a sex-starved middle age bachelor that is constantly hitting on his hot neighbor Casey (Leslie Bibb). Thomas Lennon is perfectly cast a Felix Unger if we were watching the 1970’s version of Felix living today. But that’s one of my many problems with this new redo of “The Odd Couple”. Back in the 70’s the idea of a mild mannered, metro-sexual male that loved to cook and clean was not common and probably more freakish than if Felix was a Martian or a secret Russian spy. So naturally that 70’s Felix was a stark contrast to 70’s Oscar’s frat house mentality of living with clothes and newspapers strewn everywhere, piles of dirty dishes, stinky cigars and no shortage of empty beer cans. U.S. TV viewers in the 1970’s were not used to seeing a neat freak like Felix. But in 2015 the big idea that we would be shocked to see a guy like an OCD Felix when we have seen great seasons of Tony Shalhoub as a severely OCD “Monk” and Jim Parsons on “The Big Bang Theory” has won multiple Emmys and Golden Globes playing the obnoxious and OCD Sheldon Cooper.

And we can get our fix of a much better grouchy, disheveled and politically incorrect Oscar Madison type on FX’s “Louie” with Louis C.K. and Jim Jefferies on “Legit”. I wish I could see a Black atheist, pothead, Hippie, liberal Oscar living with a rich, conservative white Christian Felix. So to me “The Odd Couple” is not needed or original so I give it a $$.

David L. $Money Train$ Watts • FuTurXTV • HHBMedia.com • [email protected] • www.hhbmedia.com • David Velo Stewart