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Network: ABC; Genre: Sitcom; Content Rating: TV-G; Classification: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4)Season Reviewed: Series (3+ season)The only reason According to Jim' is even still on the air, as of this writing, is because it isn't a reality show. Launched by ABC in the fall of 2002 with '8 Simple Rules', 'Life with Bonnie' and 'Less than Perfect', it was part of the network's pendulum swing away from the reality genera and back toward more audience-pleasing scripted family comedies. It's much better than a reality show, but a hard punch in the back of the head would be too. So, now we're stuck with this monster. In that reality rebellion I'm afraid the audience may have given Jim Belushi, the cast and his writers the impression that they were actually funny. They aren't and as a sitcom the show is a waste of time and space on every level. How many ways can you say that something is bad? 'Jim' is nothing, like a spec of dust in the air. It has no distinct characters or comic talents. It has no vision or voice. It has no chemistry. It has no desire to do anything creative or original. It doesn't want to tell a story or even strain to hard to tell a joke. It wants to be escapism and get a laugh every now and then and it can't even do that. At the same time it isn't even bad up on an insulting level that I can get worked up and challenge it. The show is headlined with another classic improbable sitcom odd-couple marriage in Belushi and Courtney Thorne-Smith ('Melrose Place', if that doesn't say it all). The husband/father is, typically, a tubby sports and sex-obsessed idiot always needing to be wrangled in by his more sensible, down to earth, and never wrong wife. As much as this TV husband lives in constant fear of not having sex, he is also so self absorbed that he will forgo opportunities for said sex so he can attend a football game, watch a football game or some other act of self indulgence. They make up cute at the end of each episode so they could go through the same thing again. None of these shows have the guts to end with their wives finally filing for divorce. For those that haven't heard this a thousand times before: these kind of escapist sitcoms are designed to pander to the married/relationship set - for the husbands to fantasize that they can be as much a pig as they want and still get Courtney Thorne-Smith. Wives are to feel like they are doing an act of charity raising both their kids and childish husbands who are constantly screwing up and getting them into predicaments. We're all supposed to hold hands at the end, look into each others eyes and say "that's just like us" or "it's so realistic". That illusion of familiarity is the only thing that keeps these shows running. Belushi, swallowing the slob sitcom clichés whole-heartedly, is flat-out obnoxious. Everyone else, including Thorne-Smith, cute Kimberly Williams and Larry Joe Campbell (as Belushi's fat slob sidekick) run around and fall all over the place trying their paltry best to give this any signs of life. It is embarrassing to watch. Next time I come across another one of these cookie-cutter sitcoms, I'm going to make it easy on myself and just cut and paste this review and change the names. See if anyone notices. Hey, you get out what you put in.*
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