Cheers & Jeers: Desperate Measures?
Larry Hagman
Jeers to Desperate Housewives for wasting a pair of beloved TV veterans.
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Larry Hagman survived getting shot as J.R. Ewing on Dallas — and will reprise the role in TNT's upcoming reboot — but he couldn't last two episodes of ABC's primetime soap as Larry, the rich-jerk husband of Lynette's mom, Stella (Polly Bergen). As if killing him off so quickly weren't insulting enough, Housewives kept his corpse sitting around Lynette's house overnight until his new will leaving his fortune to Stella took effect. Even J.R.'s Dallas nemesis Cliff Barnes was never that cold and craven!
Meanwhile, cult fave Dave Foley (NewsRadio) was squandered as Monroe, a high-school classmate who offered to give Susan (Teri Hatcher) a desperately needed kidney — until she shunned his stalker-ish advances. The part was just creepy, not funny — unlike Foley's similar role as a loser obsessed with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the much-missed The New Adventures of Old Christine. Foley was always the prettiest girl in The Kids in the Hall's drag sketches; maybe he can come back in disguise as Wisteria Lane's newest Housewife.
Do you think Desperate Housewives mishandled Larry Hagman and Dave Foley?
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