The reason Why this show got canceled - Joey (2004) Discussion

[–] Christophee 16 years ago

I thought Paulo Costanzo was great as Michael, probably better than any of the other cast members, in my opinion.

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[–] AgentX7k 16 years ago

I like Paulo (he's hot) and Jennifer Coolidge makes the show for me, she's always hilarious and has some of the best lines.

"Get ready for an all new Biohazard ... now let's listen to Beyoncé!!"

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[–] joey_pesci 16 years ago

I personally think greed got the better of the network. They saw the success of Friends and the success of Frasier and stupidly thought Joey would work. Yet clearly didn't understand that Joey on Friends only worked in segments. Having a whole show just about him would get annoying and he was suppose to be dense so they character couldn't develop. It couldn't develop because people loved the fact he was dense so they couldn't make his character evolve.

So like I say greed got the better of the network and they just ignored the fact Joey just doesn't work on his own.

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[–] pgreenfi 16 years ago

I agree it was the greed of the network, they thought it would be a big sucess as a spin-off like Fraiser was but it didn't work out. Maybe if they had gone down the root of having guest stars from the original show like Fraiser did it might have lasted longer.

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[–] halomaniac88 11 years ago

but then Frasier is a good show.

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[–] NobodymournstheWicked 16 years ago

Not that I am saying that you are wrong, but personally I think that what did the show in, was the 2nd season, and the writing they did for the 2nd season, which caused a lot of people to not like what they were seeing, and they stopped watching. If you look at http://www.tv.com/joey/show/20952/episode.html , those are all the episodes from season #2, and none of the episodes after episode #14 of the 2nd season, got aired. And we might be lucky if they do live to see daylight.

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[–] Christophee 16 years ago

All of those episodes that didn't air on NBC have since aired on various networks around the world and they're on the DVD which has been released in various countries, so it's quite easy to see them all.

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[–] herbsuperb 16 years ago

I thought the casting was great on that show. Paulo Costanzo was at times hilarious as Michael. The scene where he is trying to replace the water dispenser was just priceless. Great physical comedy. Jennifer Coolidge is always funny and while her character was a little over the top I think it worked. Some of the supporting characters I could have done without, but all in all I think the show was well cast. Not perfect, but certainly okay. Personally I think Drea De Matteo was the best part of the show.

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[–] Christophee 16 years ago

Paulo Costanzo was at times hilarious as Michael. The scene where he is trying to replace the water dispenser was just priceless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5BTR-hSrX0

I love that scene. He does virtually have it quite early on though and deliberately pulls it away.

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[–] kuhlio13 15 years ago

I thought Drea De Matteo was the worst mistake of the show. All she had going for her was a hot body. She couldn't act and they made her an incest figure. She always acted like she wanted to do her son and sometimes Joey. She ruined the show for me. Also, as much as I like the Joey character....it was just too much Joey. I agree...Joey is good in segments...not as a main character. Frasier worked because they had a great cast. Frasier alone would've been too much Frasier. That's the mistake they made in Joey.

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[–] Theowne 16 years ago

I think Joey is just not compelling as a lead character. He is a caricature, a shallow, dense, comic relief figure, not a main character who you can identify with.

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[–] eddtedd 15 years ago

A big problem I had with this show was that they had Joey in every single scene. Even when he had nothing to do with the scene, he was there right in the middle of it.
I think this stopped the rest of the characters from developing and the audience from connecting with them. If you can't connect with a character and don't care about them you end up not caring about the whole programme.
Frasier did it right, by concentrating on other characters and not relying on Frasier all the time.

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[–] Christophee 15 years ago

I agree that the other characters weren't developed anywhere near enough. Joey worked well on Friends feeding off the other characters whereas everything on this show revolves around him and it just doesn't work as well. I still think the show is great, but that was a problem it had.

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[–] minamelandme 15 years ago

the problem with this show was just the magic dialouges from friends that ppl still expected .I have not heard such intelligent blowing dialouges in any other show or even movie for that matter

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[–] hka-3 15 years ago

That's a possibility about the dialogue and what people expected compared to Friends. I agree with the OP about the casting, except that I didn't like the casting of Drea de Matteo in a comedy role so soon after her departure from a serious role on The Sopranos. She was amazing on The Sopranos, but had such a huge affect on me that it was hard to buy her 'Joey' character. Others may have felt the same way, which could account for some of the ratings problems.

I've always said they should've had someone cast as Joey's agent who was another potential love interest, so that at the least there could be a flirtatious vibe from both him and the agent. I also thought Joey's nephew should've looked more like a stud with brains, but lacking in skills as a "lady's man" as a more interesting contrast to Joey's character. Then it would've been fun to see Joey showing him the ropes in that department, while the nephew could teach Joey occasionally when it came to book smarts.

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[–] whokilledreno 15 years ago

The real reason why Joey didnt take off is actually a lot more simple than you may think.

A lot of the shows that you watch all have a common denominator that binds the characters together. Its never too elaborate, its usually something very simple.

in scrubs - they all work at a hospital.

in malcolm in the middle - the three kids, all have to deal with their unconventional parents.

in spin city - they are all civil servants.

in fresh prince of bell air - they are all from a minority, in a predominately white area of LA.

In friends they were all twenty somethings trying to figure out what to do with their lives. That was the glue that binded the characters together.

However, in Joey the common denominator was Joey himself. Without him, the characters had NO shared connection whatsoever.

This is why Joey failed

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[–] scorpion-52 14 years ago

The show was cancelled cause NBC stupidly put in the same timeslot as American Idol and it's ratings soon declined because of that, anyways I can see why others don't like Gina, but she was always my favorite character on the show, I just love how hilariously inappropriate and over-the-top she is, I was also happy that Joey came into his own as a character, got a real love interest and I was especially greatful that he got considerably smarter and wasn't borderline retarded like he was in the last few seasons of Friends("The One Where Joey Speaks French" being the worst) Jennifer Coolidge was alright, sometimes she's funny sometimes she's not, Andrea Anders was just wonderful as Alex, her and Joey made such a perfect couple! Costanzo was the weakest link for me, he wasn't a bad actor, but the whole thing of Michael prefering science over women was WAY overdone and wasn't all that funny to begin with, to me Michael mostly came across as a less interesting and less funny version of Ross.

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[–] mithrandir-9 12 years ago

That's a very good point, but I think both the casting and writing had something to do with it as well. I suppose I started watching this show more out of habit than anything else, since at least one character was familiar as was the case with Frasier. The characters just never seemed to click with one another and the writing seemed more and more like they were just phoning it in. I just remember thinking about half way into the second season that someone needed to put this show out of its misery and it wasn't long before I got my wish.

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[–] 11 years ago

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[–] I_Guard_Tanelorn 11 years ago

The best eps of Joey were when he was working on set. Too much of the show was just sitting around the living room. Drea was horribly miscast. And Joey is the goofball. You can't have the comic relief as the lead.

"I said no camels, that's five camels, can't you count?"

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