Worst late series "add on character"

[TMC]

I say this because most fans seem to believe that Night Court really started to do downhill in quality after Reinhold Weege left as executive producer following the 1988-89 season (which I think was the sixth).

To give you some perspective:

I didn't mind the Christine-being-pregnant plotline from 1989-1990 so much, as the show still had all the elements which made it funny. But in Fall, 1990, everything changed. John Astin was gone ( I guess some people disliked him, but I thought he was great). The wacky courtroom cases were gone (the Trekkies, the candidates running for God, etc.). Christine was no longer naive. Harry was no longer goofy. The Phil Foundation. Lisette the court steno. And the final episode was one of the worst I've ever seen. The last two years (starting in 1990) were the worst of the series.

When Reinhold Weege left as exec producer, the goofiness left too, and the show simply stopped being funny. Dan got soft, the storylines got schmaltzy, stupid extra characters (the stenographer, Gilbert Gottfried, et al.) came in, the show tipped from anarchic to heartwarming, and I hate heartwarming.

Night Court started their jump when Christine got pregnant, then really jumped after Phil died and Dan's character completely changed. How stupid!! Thank goodness they got rid of Lana who did Mac's Job (can't remember her real name-Karen something) and then dumped Ellen Foley eventually, too. Adding Lisette was no bonus towards the end of the series. John Astin was a riot as Harry's father!! Night Court had one of the stupidest series finales ever, with Bull going in a UFO. Dumb!!

I agree...this show jumped at the beginning of the 1990-91 season , when Chris Cluess and Stuart Kriesmann became exec producers. The season before, with Christine pregnant et al, at least had the zany elements of what made the show great, even though you could tell the actors were getting tired and they had a minimum of 3 subplots running in each ep. But when Cluess and Kriesman added that reporter girlfriend for Judge Stone and the Stenographer and newsstand guy (did either one ever get more than one line per ep)...Chirstine's divorce...THAN the whole Phil death thing....yikes. Pretty embarrassing to watch.

I used to LOVE this show!!! IMO, Harry, Christine, Mac, Bull, & Roz were the funniest cast of their era. I also loved Phil, Buddy, the Wheelers, Art...the cast was awesome! What ruined it for me was the addition of vacuous, pointless characters like Lisette the stenographer, Bull's annoying blind girlfriend, played by Elayne Boosler, & Margaret, Harry's tough as nails reporter girlfriend played by the marginally talented Mary Cadorette. It was an awesome show in it's time, but they let this show go on way too long.

When Christine Sullivan married Tony--who always called her Sullivan.

[jessm78]

Oh boy, that's a tough question. I found most of them pretty annoying (although Jack the newsstand guy wasn't too bad...he could be pretty funny sometimes). I wasn't a fan of Tony and Christine together at all. Lisette could be a little funny sometimes, but her ditziness got on my nerves quite often. Out of all of them I had to go with Oscar, Gilbert Gottfried's character. He seemed like an unnecessary character to me (and I know they had to have someone there who was filling in for Dan before he became reinstated, but I think they could have done better), and he was very grating. I don't even think he was there that long - wasn't he gone around mid-season or so?

[JLThorpe]

I think I posted one of those Jump the Shark comments quoted above (the one that begins "I didn't mind the Christine-being-pregnant plotline..."). I still think Lisette was the most annoying character (her voice was like nails on a chalkboard). I don't even remember Gottfried's Oscar Brown character. I don't think Jack the newsstand owner bothered me, but he seemed pretty pointless, from what I remember.

[MikeLutton]

I couldn't stand lisette her voice just annoyed hell out of me bull did to sometimes she was worst

I couldn't stand quan lee at all she seemed to bosy and annoyed me to much..

buddy was ok but his ,line im feeling lot better now got old quick.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by MikeL

I couldn't stand lisette her voice just annoyed hell out of me bull did to sometimes she was worst

I couldn't stand quan lee at all she seemed to bosy and annoyed me to much..

buddy was ok but his ,line im feeling lot better now got old quick.

Speaking of Buddy, why wasn't John Astin invited back for the last two seasons of Night Court? He was always incredibly funny (the last two seasons were for the most part, a comedic black-hole) as Harry's eccentric father. Maybe the new producers felt that he made people w/ mental issues be seen in a "poor light". And yet, that didn't stop them from doing the whole storyline about Dan's nervous breakdown after Phil, the bum died.

[MikeLutton]

I don't know also felt with them pranksters want give mel torme a award we know what happened after that was stupid to,

didn't they already do that with bull give his money to the poor and everything he had cause he almost died

keep repeating storylines dan one I didn't care for that one to hard to watch.glad he went back to old self though

[TMC]

Originally Posted by JLThorpe

I think I posted one of those Jump the Shark comments quoted above (the one that begins "I didn't mind the Christine-being-pregnant plotline..."). I still think Lisette was the most annoying character (her voice was like nails on a chalkboard). I don't even remember Gottfried's Oscar Brown character. I don't think Jack the newsstand owner bothered me, but he seemed pretty pointless, from what I remember.

I don't understand why the new producers (Kreisman and Cluess) thought that Lisette was a good enough of a character to practically be the seventh main character (after Harry, Dan, Bull, Christine, Mac and Roz). There's an old saying, "A little can go a long way!" And Lisette was the embodiment of that. We didn't need to see that grating, pointlessly vacuous, one-dimensional character in virtually every, single episode (regardless of screen-time). Lisette practically became "The Scrappy" of the later seasons of Night Court

[MikeLutton]

it became hard to watch couldn't stand her voice I had mute my tv she was barley in every scene in every episode.her voice sounded as bad as cat valentime on victorious

[jessm78]

LOL yeah, her voice really grated on me too. There were some scenes that she was the focus of that I thought were really pointless/annoying. I loved Dan's line to her in the series finale when she made some stupid joke... he said something like "Oh shut your squeaky trap!!" My thoughts exactly, Dan

[icecream]

Jack and Lisette were added around the same time but Jack was dropped. I agree Lisette was annoying, would have much rather Jack be kept. If they wanted another female cast member Quon Le should have been made a regular instead of Lisette.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by JLThorpe

I think I posted one of those Jump the Shark comments quoted above (the one that begins "I didn't mind the Christine-being-pregnant plotline..."). I still think Lisette was the most annoying character (her voice was like nails on a chalkboard). I don't even remember Gottfried's Oscar Brown character. I don't think Jack the newsstand owner bothered me, but he seemed pretty pointless, from what I remember.

The problem w/ the Tony character (was he supposed to be a knock or play on Tony Danza, w/ the whole stereotypical "macho, Italian, New York guy" act and the "opposites attract" angle involving him and Judith Light's character on Who's the Boss) is that he was really nothing more than a contrived plot device to write in Markie Post's real life pregnancy. Also, the whole storyline pretty much killed the tension between Christine, Harry and Dan. I don't think that hardly anybody cared about Harry hooking up w/ that reporter lady. What's funny is that she was played by the same actress who played Vicki in the last few episodes of Three's Company (why should we get invested in Jack Tripper falling in love w/ a woman we hardly know about when it would've been more hypothetically agreeable that would end up w/ Janet) and its spin-off Three's a Crowd.

[MikeLutton]

Originally Posted by jessm78

LOL yeah, her voice really grated on me too. There were some scenes that she was the focus of that I thought were really pointless/annoying. I loved Dan's line to her in the series finale when she made some stupid joke... he said something like "Oh shut your squeaky trap!!" My thoughts exactly, Dan

yeah he said why do you always got to add your stupid asids lol didnt roz tell her to shut up to

[TMC]

Originally Posted by catsrule

Jack and Lisette were added around the same time but Jack was dropped. I agree Lisette was annoying, would have much rather Jack be kept. If they wanted another female cast member Quon Le should have been made a regular instead of Lisette.

It seemed like w/ Lisette, the thinking was that "since it's Night Court, we need a recurring eccentric character" (a la Buddy, Phil, or the Wheelers). The problem is that Joleen Lutz, the actress who played Lisette played it way too over-the-top and broadly. Instead of naturally blending into that world like the other characters that I just mentioned, Lisette always stuck out like a really sore thumb. What makes matters worse, is that it seems like just about everybody just sat their an reacted to Lisette as if they were almost completely comfortable or used to her behavior.