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Men of a Certain Age is strung together by small moments of triumph that make life worth living--and this show worth watching.
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100I just finished watching screener episodes of Romano's new show, Men Of A Certain Age, which he created with "Everybody Loves Raymond" writer Mike Royce, and I'm blown away.
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100At turns it's sad, poignant, bitter and funny (yes, more than enough turns in that direction).
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It's a midlife triumph, a series that takes a well-worn theme and makes it unpredictable, freshly funny, and sometimes moving.
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90A fast moving mix of physical comedy and wry dialogue articulate this friendship, revealing its complexity and its depth.
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88There are big moments, but much of the joy comes from small exchanges and throwaway jokes.
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80Although Romano is the keystone of the group, it is very much an ensemble drama buoyed by writing that protects the characters from the perils of self-pity and self-indulgence with quick and gentle humor and plot points that capture the forces a middle-aged, middle-class man might actually battle.
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80It is a believable, sharply observed portrait of ordinary men who, through all-too-common bad breaks and missteps, feel that they are backsliding.
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80Divorce, father issues, an aging Peter Pan-we've seen these things before. Not like this, though, with no false notes, and reactions, from pain to optimism, that feel honest and not manufactured.
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80Men of a Certain Age proves a powerful yet mercifully amusing experience--bittersweet, poignant and wise. It's not just a series, but something of a tonic.
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80Men of a Certain Age is bound to attract attention, because its co-creator, and one of its co-stars, is Ray Romano; what shouldn't be overlooked, however, is the fact that the show is also good. Surprisingly good.
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80Those who gravitate to this engaging show will be rewarded with the kind of substantial, thoughtful fare more often reserved for theater audiences. Plus, there are outstanding performances.
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80While at times it feels like a bleak HerskoZwick drama--"Fortysomething Going on Fiftysomething"--the stories are leavened with humor, and the chemistry between the leads, and their fine performances.
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80Let me tell you how much I like TNT's new drama series, Men of a Certain Age. The cable channel sent me five hours worth of screeners, and I watched all five back-to-back Saturday--and would have watched another five hours of the series if they had sent them.
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80They're all skilled enough to play both the drama and comedy of the situations their characters confront, and, what's more, viewers are prepared to know and like them.
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75There's some spot-on and sharp humor throughout, but it never gets too light and breezy.
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There are still some forced situations (Joe gets hit on by a drunk businesswoman and panics) and forced dialogue (the friends compare the number of medicinal creams they each use), but there are also more throwaway scenes with shoot-the-shit dialogue that do more to flesh out the men's lives than anything in the overwritten pilot.
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70It might take you three or four episodes to decide if you want to keep up with these guys. I do. And the fact that the show is on cable means everybody will at least have the chance to get hooked.
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70Men isn't a great series yet, but it has the assets to grow into one. And in the interim, watching it certainly isn't a Sisyphean task.
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70The creative team did not find the right chemistry until the second episode. But Men of a Certain Age does settle into a groove, and it's a good one.
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70Like its characters, Men of a Certain Age isn't perfect, and maybe not everyone who loved "Raymond" is going to love it. But this show about men who are, as TNT puts it, in "the second act of their lives," isn't a bad second act at all for Romano.
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70It's an insightful, easy-to-like, low-stakes character dramedy about men coming to terms with their limits. A story for an era of lower expectations, Men of a Certain Age meets its own diminished ones, and surpasses them.
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50There are a few confrontations or comedic moments that catch fire, but mostly "Men" just ambles along, sometimes perceptively and sometimes lazily observing the lives of these guys, who have stumbled into middle age and its grinding routines and hard-won but significant satisfactions.
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40Too much of Men, despite Romano's skill at observational humor, feels slow and uncomfortably downbeat.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 45 out of 53
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Mixed: 2 out of 53
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Negative: 6 out of 53
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Ray Romano is a ****