[Reba - General Discussion]

On 10/21/2017 at 7:46 AM, readster said:

Good question, especially when the main plot was around how her husband of so many years left her for his assistant and had a baby with her right afterwards. Something that bothered me, when we met Barbara Jean's father, how he hated Brock. But, oh blinded that his daughter had a hand in the affair and then had a baby with him. No, why would she have any fault in that. I hated how Kira was written as the series went along. Her jealous that her niece was getting all the attention, feeling she get more attention moving in with Brock and BJ, then being teased and bullied by classmates about her sister having a baby as a senior in high school. Because you know, teen pregnancies are a 4 letter word. As they had the principal say: "In our world, sex doesn't exist." Over the course of the series, they treated people as brainless rednecks if it they were in the education or political system in the world of Reba. I remember one school writing letters going: "I'm sorry, but we are not like that, we still love the show, but stop acting like we live on another planet here in Texas." I think Reba deserved to have a more serious adult relationship, but barely lasted 2 episodes. 

Well the sad part is some places really ARE like that, Abstinence-only education in high schools was a real controversy at the time the show was airing(and it's attempting to make a comeback under the current administration) and i'm sure the school principal character was the show's way of taking shots at that sort of thing.  

I thought the principal was over-the-top until I heard about Rick Perry. 

The way Kyra was written felt realistic to me.

On 11/4/2017 at 8:05 AM, readster said:

I felt Brock never learned from all the crap he did over the years, especially in the flashbacks of him early on. How he "fell" for Barbra Jean made little sense. They could have gone some good places when they introduced that he was clinically depressed that lasted for several episodes. Even BJ's reaction thinking that someone shouldn't be depressed if they have a wife and family at home. Then learning that depression doesn't work that way. However, by the time we got to the final season, Brock had really taken off to super ass, of course the actor was also starting to moonlight on Boston Legal at the time. For Van, when they had him start realizing how he had to work hard for things and be a good role model, he was great in the role. When they wanted to keep back peddling on him being stupid or more naive than Barbra Jean, it made him look horrible. Reason why I got tired of Kira's character after the move out. You got why she wanted to move out, she wanted to be a regular teen, but then she hated being a regular teen. I also know that the actresses eating disorder was playing a role in things too, but Kira started becoming an entitled brat more than her sister later on. 

I disagree on Kyra, it made sense how she was written.  Part of her attitude stemmed from stress over Barbra Jean and Brock fighting.  Kyra already had to live through seeing her parents split up, so I can see how her dad and step-mom then fighting and separating had a negative effect on her.

[Reba - General Discussion]

On 10/17/2017 at 9:19 PM, msani19 said:

This was a show that I oddly found myself enjoying when it was on. I remember that the show was canceled, not that Reba decided to end it. It was still funny and probably had another year in it. If it wasn't for the network change from the WB to the CW, I think that they might have had another year. The way it happened seemed to take the cast by surprise.

I really thought the show was fun and pretty well acted. I don't remember if this was Reba's first acting job, but she did well in this role (but not so much in the subsequent role she had – that was rough!)

I did find it fascinating that Reba really never got to have a long-lasting relationship or even a friend outside of the family. I remember the woman from the 1st season who was her best friend, but I didn't like the character. I'm disappointed that they just didn't find another real friend for Reba. I will say that despite it being a funny plot point, I was always annoyed with Barbara Jean wanting to be Reba's BFF. I know they got a lot of laughs from "you stole my husband!" but come one, Reba had to have been a freaking saint to put up with her and Brock the way she did. All Barbara Jean would have gotten from me is “bitch, get out of my house before I drag your extra tall behind outta here and don’t you dare walk back in here”. But that’s just me :-)

She did do some acting before this series, most notably in the first Tremors film, she was pretty funny there.

[Reba - General Discussion]

On 7/17/2016 at 10:24 AM, Big Mother said:

I'm around episode 6 and loving it. Brock and Reba have so much chemistry I'm still scratching my head why he would cheat on her with that ditzy, airhead, empty-brain Barbara Jean. In general, why are so many characters painted as stupid? Van is so dim, I wouldn't marry him even if I was pregnant with his kid. Ugh.

To be fair he does get considerably smarter as the show goes on(though he still has has blunders), and honestly Cheyenne's often not that bright herself, so I think they make a perfect couple.

On 9/17/2017 at 8:18 PM, aquarian1 said:

I felt the same way when I "discovered" the show the same way, via syndication, a couple of years ago.

I caught season 6 when it originally ran, and I remember being shocked when it ended, cause before watching it, I wasn't aware that episode 13 of that season was the final episode as I was used to the previous seasons having 22 episodes.

[Reba - General Discussion]

On 7/24/2015 at 9:00 PM, Bastet said:

I generally only stop to watch seasons two through four, and didn't discover the show until it was in syndication, but I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it and wound up watching the series the whole way through and buying the first four seasons on DVD. 

 

It sounds terrible on paper, and I don't think much of McEntire as an actor (hell of a singing voice, though), but the cast works well together, Barbara Jean and Van are terrific characters (when they're the two who read worst to me on paper), the evolving relationship between Barbara Jean and Reba is worth the price of admission, and the writers do a pretty good job of exploring the dynamics of a blended family.

 

It's alarming to watch Scarlett Pomers get so skinny, and it was an interesting choice to never address Kyra's absence.  But I love what they do when she comes back -- "Where have you been?"  It's a ripoff of Roseanne when Lecy Goranson returns as Becky, but it works here too.  Does anyone who watched in real time remember if it was known at the time her absence was due to treatment for anorexia?  Because Kyra's "Getting something to eat" answer seems like a reference, especially since they did it twice.

I was always kind of bothered that season 5 went on without her, it struck me as more then a little disrespectful for the execs to not even try to work around her rehab so she could still be on the show.  I just couldn't imagine them doing that with any of the adult characters on the show if one of their actors happened to be dealing with anorexia. I get the sense the writers were running out of ideas for Kyra and the execs saw Scarlett's anorexia as a get-out-of-jail free card to not have to write her character anymore.  For the few times she did show up in season 5, I could sense that her character was starting to go the same route as Carmen did in season 5 of George Lopez, where she stopped getting her own subplots and only showed up for a joke or two per episode. So even if Scarlett hadn't had her battle with anorexia(or the show hadn't nearly gotten cancelled and then delayed before season 5 started production, as Scarlett mentioned in interviews how that was a major factor in her extreme weight loss, so nice going there execs!) I still get the feeling Kyra would've largely faded into the background, only showing up every once in a while for the occasional joke or two.  

[Reba - General Discussion]

So while reading some old articles about Scarlett Pomers battle with anorexia, something jumped out at me-she mentioned how one of the reasons she lost weight so drastically was because she was stressed when the show came close to being cancelled, resulting in production delays.  I wasn't aware of the show almost being cancelled after season 4 and i'm curious as to what exactly caused the show to get nearly cancelled and then delayed that time.  

I always did suspect that WB resented having to air a show it did not own(it was created and owned by FOX as opposed to WB, and networks tend not to treat shows they don't own very well) and actively tried to sabotage the show because of it. Interestingly it wasn't the only FOX owned show aired by another network to get that treatment, George Lopez also got mistreated by ABC because of that(it was frequently put up against American Idol). 

I also began to get suspicious that there was executive meddling in season 5 of both shows, as in both cases the teenage girl characters(Carmen and Kyra) largely faded into the background.  With Carmen after the season 5 premiere, she never got any of her own subplots again, she would pretty just show up for one or two jokes per episode and that was it, seemed like things were headed that way for Kyra as well before Scarlett's anorexia forced her into rehab.  But I couldn't help but suspect that the network execs used her anorexia as a convenient excuse for to ignore her character and instead focus more on other characters(cause apparently someone thought Jake needed more screentime), I always wondered why the execs thought it would be easier to cut her out of most of season 5 altogether instead of working around her rehab. True she was in a residential facility, but only for two months, surely the network could've made arrangements with the facility to have her do filming a couple times of week(Keifer Sutherland did have such an arrangement for 24 while he was in jail for his D.U.I. where the jail would've let him out once a week to do filming for season 7, the only reason that didn't end up happening is because the writers strike led to season 7 getting delayed, so he opted to do all his jail time at once) and if that wasn't possible, surely they could've delayed the season some more until she was out of the facility, seeing as it had already been delayed once before. 

I think what happened was the writers were starting to run out of ideas for Kyra and they saw Scarlett's anorexia as the perfect opportunity to move on with the show without her character, and that was something that always bugged me about me season 5(don't get me wrong I still enjoyed that season, but Kyra's absence for most of it was very noticeable for me. On a related note I was thinking of doing another topic where people could make suggestions for what Kyra would've said in the episodes where she didn't appear).  I just somehow imagine if it had been one of the other actors who was suffering from anorexia, that the network execs would've been willing to work with them so they could still be in the season.  The fact that the network was not willing to work with Scarlett(the execs apparently forced her off the show, while the cast and her parents certainly wanted her to get help, I can't imagine they were happy that the show was going on without her) tells me that the execs thought so little of Kyra as a character that they could just continue season 5 like normal without even acknowledging her absence, and that really rubbed me the wrong way.  

I remember all the suspense of whether the show was cancelled or not after season 5, and I was pretty angry at the prospect of never getting any further developments for Kyra as a character, so I was delighted when she returned in season 6 and openly acknowledged Scarlett's disorder.  Though I did feel like Kyra was somewhat underutilized in that season too, as she only had a handful of subplots compared to previous seasons.

Sorry for my long rambling post, this is just something I wanted to get off my chest and this forum seemed like the best place for it since TV.com's communities are barely active(god I miss the old TV.com forums so much, there was one guy on the Reba forums who did really damn good fan-fiction, he seriously could've been a writer for the show).