The Final Episode #3: The Drew Carey Show

 

Yes! this segment has returned and I'm gonna talk about something that ISN'T a DIC cartoon! What?! Yes that's right we are heading into situational comedy territory. Something I loved as a child and still enjoy today. New ones (at the time) old ones (just getting older) and such. Family shows, gimmick shows, it didn't matter I was on it. I was all about them and I couldn't get enough!

The Drew Carey Show was probably one of my favorites. I don't know when I became a loyal viewer but according to wikipedia I stopped watching somewhere in season 6 because what happens in the end of that season does not sound like I watched it (Drew ends up in a mental hospital), but I enjoyed the banter between the characters a lot, especially Lewis and Oswald (played by Ryan Stiles and Dietrich Bader).

The show started off as a group of friends, Drew, Kate, Oswald, and Lewis. Despite being different ages all of the characters felt like friends. Drew had a job at Winfred-Louder and his very own sitcom "enemy" Mimi who was a delightful character on her own. She even dated his crossdressing brother Steve! Man this show was pretty weird very early on wasn't it?

Now we finally get to the Finale of this show....entitled Finale which appeared on September 8th, 2004. Yep, you can tell they really put effort into that episode's title. During the last two seasons of the show, the ratings were pretty low and Drew had gotten a woman named Kellie pregnant. This lady is not very funny or talented sadly, at least in this persons opinion. Kate was a lot more spunky and fun to watch. This episode is them finally trying to get married so that their son won't end up being a bastard or born out of wedlock to put it in a more TV friendly way (isn't it weird that 16 years later I doubt most people would be all that into a plot like that. I don't even know if the people of 2004 would have cared. I would have been like eh whatever bro marry her when you want this aint 1952 no more son.

So they have a wedding reception and Michael Gross shows up as Kellie's dad. You know the dad from Family Ties and also Burt Gummer from Tremors. It's weird how he's probably had 400 other roles but I'll only remember him from those two and he tries but sadly isn't great as Kellie's dad whos angry at her mom (whos now having sex with Lewis!?) I don't know anymore. So a big old fight breaks out and Drew and Kellie leave to just go to the court room and get the whole thing done with. Some old black guy who may or may not have appeared in the later seasons drives them there (but then complains when a clearly very pregnant woman's water breaks and ruins his car. I don't think these jokes are being set up very well anymore.) 

So they go to the hospital and they try to find a priest.... only one in the building is there giving the last rights to some old guy and he promised the old guy he wouldn't leave. This scene is the only scene that got a laugh out of me if I'm being honest. A few  smiles and chuckles but only one laugh. Not great for a sitcom series finale. They then bring everyone into the room, including Kellie who's labor just goes faster and has to be brought back upstairs. The priest comes in at the very last second and marries them. Woohoo. We then get a scene of the backstage cast and crew and also people getting autographs from the cast. Kinda interesting I guess. This whole episode was only 20 minutes. Wild huh.

I'd been saving this fact for a while so here it is. All 26 episodes of the final season were released between June 4th, 2004 and September 8th, 2004. That's how much faith ABC had in the program then. I wasn't even a big TV watcher at that point, preferring to play my NES games and watch weird B-movies but it's kinda hard to enjoy 26 episodes when they are just plopped in at any old time just to burn them off, but if we are going by the quality of this episode maybe I don't want to see the rest.

Final Rating: This was not a very good final episode, but how many sitcoms can you name that were still as good in their ninth season. I'd name the Simpsons but only barely and holy hell did it get bad afterwards but thats an entirely different article. I knew I wasn't going to be loving this episode when it started with a breast cancer joke. Not exactly the greatest comedy to be trying to pull. Still it made me laugh once so I'll give it a D-