Ned and Stacey

1990s tv sitcom

Two New Yorkers find unusual solution to their problems - he needed promotion, she needed to move out from her parents house, so they decided to... get married. Well, sort of...

A blind date goes wrong - energetic advertisement executive Ned and aspiring journalist Stacey are from two completely different worlds. Few days later she discovers that Ned used her exact words in one of his commercials, so of course she tracks him down to tell him off. Suddenly they discover that they could help each other solve their biggest problems by... getting married. Well, not exactly getting married - to get a promotion Ned needs to be a family man, so he needs a wife (or someone pretending to be his wife during meetings with the clients), while Stacey is tired of her mother’s bickering about when she will finally get married and move out of the house. They get married, but live together as flatmates - Stacey have to take part in the parties for the clients and pretend to be Ned’s wife, rest of their lives is completely separate.

Ned and Stacey had one of the most ridiculous premises you will find in the sitcoms ever - two people pretend to be married to solve their little problems and... that’s where the concept pretty much ended. Michael J. Weithorn (later creator of King of Queens) had a real chance to create something great - Thomas Haden Church left Wings as star to find a new show, Debra Messing was a promising choice to join him, they got a perfect spot in the schedule between the most popular shows of its times (The Simpsons and X-Files), so all he had to do is to come up with some good quality show and... failed completely.

Not only the sitcom was based on flimsy premise, after first few episodes that had decent scripts the rest of first season was just feeble, while the second season started with revolutionary changes and character of Stacey was moved out of the spotlight and replaced by Amanda as the main character and Ned’s business partner. This was linked with them two becoming owners of a muffin shop, which was just one of the symptoms that the series was dying.

Second season was chaotic, poorly written, with completely useless celebrity cameos. The plug was pulled in the middle of second season and last 11 episodes were not broadcast during the original run, which was a mercy killing really. Change of the environment (most of the scenes took part in the muffin shop), Ned’s and Eric’s work was very rarely used in the plots, Stacey was usually absent from main plots, her parents disappeared completely for second season - all of it was just a huge, steaming pile of nonsensical decisions made by the creators.

Ned and Stacey had very little to offer - two actors that lacked chemistry, scripts that lacked jokes and series that lacked the reason to exist. The premise was weak, but in some episodes it actually was a decent show, but when you start with something that barely keeps its head above the water one mistake could be fatal. In Ned and Stacey there were a lot of mistakes made throughout its short run and if not for Thomas Haden Church’s popularity at this point it might never got a full first season in a first place.

Rating	4.8
Funny	4 / 10
Entertaining	2 / 5
Characters	3 / 5
Nonrepetitive	3 / 5