Stale Mates

Image credit: Mad About You: Globe Photos

HUNT AND REISER IN MAD ABOUT YOU

There is a large list of excellent TV shows that had tragically short runs, but what would you say was the worst show to have a long run? — Mark H.

Ah, Mark, there are plenty of series that went past their primes — take Happy Days, which by the end of its decade-plus run was both excruciating and ludicrous (thereby famously spawning the phrase ''jump the shark.'') But the series whose long run baffles me the most is Mad About You, featuring Paul Reiser and multiple Emmy-winner Helen Hunt bickering charmlessly for seven seasons. I'm not a huge fan of Irritation TV — the petty trials and tribulations of the Buchmans were never addressed as cleverly as Seinfeld's endless conundrums, and while many heralded Hunt's performance as brainy and frank, I found her Jamie Buchman to be downright brittle.

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