This is not a show. This is a ravenous vacuum in time and space, that sucks so badly that it devours all joy and intelligent thought subjected to it. There are spoilers for House of Payne and Meet The Browns in this review. I hate you if you care.moreless
1.0
"Abysmal"
This show, and Meet The Browns, are both awful. When I say awful, Imean it's so abysmal that no word even comes close to being a sufficient description. I have been unable to find a strong enough word to convey my dislike. So I shall write many words instead. I don't feel this way because I have anything against Tyler Perry the man, orbecause I'm not black and don't "get it", but for what I consider to belegitimate all-around failings of this carnival of stupidity that TBSclings to like grim death. This show as I hear was meant to showAfrican Americans in a positive light while a family goes throughchallenges in their lives, and we, the viewers, get to laugh and learnalong the way. I have yet to laugh, but I've learned alright. I'velearned to what degree a person's perspective of "positive" can differfrom another's.These people, man. These people are all unlikable and infantile.Curtis, the father, is by far the worst. I would guess he's meant to bea "tough on the surface, loving underneath" sort of character, butanything underneath him is instantly crushed by his massive girth, andif there were anything redeemable in that man it's long been buried byhis gelatinous fat folds and pathetic lack of any self awareness orhumanity. He's not wildly different from the rest, he only serves as aparagon of every poor quality in everybody else on the show, maybe theworld. He's greedy, loud, ignorant, (proudly so), as morbidly stupid ashe is obese, and completely repulsive in every sense of the word. Hiswife waddles around and says something useless once in a while, usuallyabout Jesus or some obvious tired out rhetoric regarding the importanceof family or something of that nature. She's probably the mosttolerable of the main cast simply because she talks the least. Anythingshe does say can be passed off as the usual pseudo wisdom we all getfrom older people who think they know things about life just becausethey're older, but are really just trying to feel wise because theirlooks, friendships, usefulness, and curiosity are dead and dying. Whatelse do they have left but to convince themselves they know somethingand pass it off to their stupid shallow children.Which brings me to the kids. The chubby one reminds me of a dumber,less funny Kyle Massey (Cory) from That's So Raven. I never thought anykid could be less funny and more irritating than Kyle Massey, but Houseof Payne shoots for the stars like that. He serves as a plot device,usually by landing himself in some kind of stupid, easily avoidable evenfor the wildly retarded situation like being cornered by a 90 poundweakling pedophile in his own house who for some reason decided it wasa good idea to walk in unarmed, in broad daylight, and declare that he haddeceived him rather than doing what an intelligent scumbag would do andlure him away so the kid wouldn't have such a massive glaringadvantage. Not even considering this kid probably had about 60 poundson the guy. This of course turned out to be another adrenaline fueledmessage of internet safety, ending when the valiant father and hisspecial cousin playboy save the day by beating the hell out of the guy.
Day saved, thank you House of Payne for sending me yet another tired out message in an incredibly awkward and poorly thought out scenario.Oh yeah, this is a comedy show remember. I know you're probably holdingback the laughter just from my second hand account, so I'll move on.The little girl dwarfs her older brother in the annoyance department.Her acting is piss terrible, even for a child actor. This has beencovered a lot in other reviews, the constant laughing and terrible"joke" delivery is a constant, so much so that I'm never sure how muchof what I'm seeing is her character, or the little girl that's likelybeen involuntarily signed into a contract with The Tyler Perry Fairy bysome slack jawed cross eyed parental figure that genuinely laughs andpraises this slop as quality television. This is the only thing thatholds me back from tracking her down and strangling her with anextension cord, as much of a sweet mercy that may be to her.I've seen perhaps 11 or 12 episodes of this show, spaced out betweenmaybe 3 seasons. Maybe less, maybe more. The first time voluntarily,the rest a terrible happening of fate. In each one, it seemed as thoughCalvin the playboy cousin and C.J. or Carl Johnson as I like to callhim were both with a different interchangeable gorgeous black woman,and were either professing their love for them or in the midst of saidlove falling apart. What is this show trying to do here, I ask myself.This is such a damned mess. I found myself unable to remember whichgirl was which, or even recognize them visually, as they all look THESAME. Long black hair, makeup, good figure, shapely butt, and perkylarge boobs. I studied the latter few extensively of course, but stillcould not put a name to the bodies. I understand that a real followerof this show could likely easily pick them apart, but I challengeanyone here to watch that many randomly picked episodes of a goodtelevision show and tell me they can't remember the names oroutstanding personality traits of the majority of people a maincharacter has been involved with. They appear to serve no purpose otherthan looking pretty and generating stupid melodrama that could easilybe resolved with even one adult mind being present. Instead it spiralsinto a string of "will they break up or not" episodes that make evenless of an attempt to be a comedy show than usual, it's just minuteafter minute of awkwardly delivered love talks with the usual DASH O'SOME Jesus.This is not comedy for black people, this is not endearing orheartwarming, this is comedy for stupid people of all races that wantto be reaffirmed in their equally stupid belief system while beingdistracted from their terrible lives by caring about which sexy ladymight break up with Calvin that given week. Laughing at morbidly obesepeople flopping around while becoming human PSA commercials for aids orcancer or anal hemorrhaging. Yeah thanks Tyler Perry's House of Payne,the masses desperately needed you to teach us about aids, an alreadywell known long discussed topic that can be thoroughly learned aboutwith less clicks than it would take to send an angry email to yourproducers demanding they light their genitals on fire for theatrocities they have unleashed upon the world. You've done us such aservice. Then again, from the impression I get from most of the peoplethat enjoy your show, just informing them that something other thanreligious solidarity and petty family squabbles actually exists seems agenuinely legitimate venture. In future episodes, you may want to warnthem that they do in actuality need to remove the plastic covering fromfood before they eat it, and hot things will burn them should theychoose to touch them.I read another review here that talked about how House of Paynereminded the reviewer of older and more traditional sitcoms, in that itrevisits a lot of the same themes. He's right, it does. Painfully andclumsily. If House of Payne were to go back in time, I as well asanyone would expect and hope that by 2011 they would have addedsomething to the experience of at least a sliver of value, but ithasn't. It really hasn't. This show repackages what's been done amillion times before by actors and sitcoms many times over itssuperior, and twists it with its own spin of relentless knock you overthe head Jesus peddling and preachy, often times nonsensical lessons. Icould write for months about the problems and shortcomings of this showbut I don't want to. It doesn't matter what Tyler Perry's been throughor how much good he does in his community when reviewing one of thecancers he releases into public domain.Meet The Browns is basically the same thing, just with a slightly moreracially diverse cast and most of the relationship drama is between oldfat school teachers as far as I can see. I laughed when Brown found outhe had Diabetes, though. I hope he loses his feet and spends the restof his ill-spent buffoonery he calls a life lamenting all the thingshe's ever said or done, finally to die in a pool of his own vomit andself loathing.moreless
No Editor User Score: 0EDITOR
© 2007 Turner Network Television
© 2007 Turner Network Television
© 2007 Turner Network Television
© 2007 Turner Network Television
