TMC
01-21-2025, 04:18 AM
https://jacksonupperco.com/2025/01/21/the-ten-best-the-new-adventures-of-old-christine-episodes-of-season-four/
In Season Four, Old Christine goes from a B-tier sitcom with hit-and-miss sitcommery but an A-tier star who always shines, to a C-tier sitcom that is hit and miss at everything, even at showing off its A-tier star. Although the departure of a former Seinfeld alum on the writing staff scales back the Christine character’s drift into Elaine Benes — she’s not as self-serving or petulantly unpleasant as she could sometimes be in Two/Three and even regains some of her premised altruism — she’s still becoming a broader, less realistic figure overall, and within stories that actually tend to not be as BIG as they once were, but continue to feel less unique to the series’ constructs, as she is too big and broadened out to individualize them. In fact, I’d say this clash between the “big” and the “small” defines Season Four in total, as it veers back and forth from gaudy showcases for Julia Louis-Dreyfus that undermine Christine’s character entirely, and more low-concept, situation-approved ideas that, because of her less clear depiction, nevertheless lack the comic inspiration necessary to produce a worthy crescendo that we could call both motivated and hilarious.
In Season Four, Old Christine goes from a B-tier sitcom with hit-and-miss sitcommery but an A-tier star who always shines, to a C-tier sitcom that is hit and miss at everything, even at showing off its A-tier star. Although the departure of a former Seinfeld alum on the writing staff scales back the Christine character’s drift into Elaine Benes — she’s not as self-serving or petulantly unpleasant as she could sometimes be in Two/Three and even regains some of her premised altruism — she’s still becoming a broader, less realistic figure overall, and within stories that actually tend to not be as BIG as they once were, but continue to feel less unique to the series’ constructs, as she is too big and broadened out to individualize them. In fact, I’d say this clash between the “big” and the “small” defines Season Four in total, as it veers back and forth from gaudy showcases for Julia Louis-Dreyfus that undermine Christine’s character entirely, and more low-concept, situation-approved ideas that, because of her less clear depiction, nevertheless lack the comic inspiration necessary to produce a worthy crescendo that we could call both motivated and hilarious.