Charles Herold (cherold) Ellen was one of the most retooled series ever made, I think, and every change made the show worse. It was very funny in its first year, when it was called These Friends of Mine. Then some perfectly good cast members were swapped out, the premise changed, it became less ensemble style and more star driven, and it was weaker. When Arye Gross was subsequently swapped out for a grating Jeremy Piven, the show started getting very bad.When Ellen came out as gay, my mom complained that it ruined the show, but for me, the show was already bad, and her coming out was just more poorly conceived retooling that ultimately made it worse. Although the actual coming out show was brilliant, the best episode of the series, and made me briefly believe that the show had finally turned around. But it hadn't, it just kept declining.Fortunately Ellen moved on to her talk show host role, which fits her like a glove, so it's a story with a happy ending. But I wish they'd kept doing These Friends of Mine; that was a really good show.

blanche-2 "Ellen" started out as a pleasant comedy made watchable by the funny and talented Ellen DeGeneres. It ended up a groundbreaking show with tons of humor and probably the best finale in TV history.The first season of "Ellen," as stated above, was cute. The show was reworked so that in the second season, Ellen had a new group of friends, all of whom could hold their own with her (Joley Fisher, David Anthony Higgins, Jeremy Piven, and Clea Lewis' role was expanded). The show became much funnier and snappier. And in the fourth season, Ellen "came out" to a therapist (Oprah Winfrey) and admitted that the man she had fallen for was named Susan.The hate mail was unbelievable -- even Winfrey received a ton of hate mail and was verbally attacked on her TV show for even appearing on this pivotal episode. There were also boycotts by groups including, as often mentioned on the show's jokes, the Baptists.The network didn't laugh and canceled the show. When you think about series such as "Will & Grace," and "Modern Family" on the networks, and all the gay characters on shows like "Six Feet Under" on cable - wow, a lot of doors were opened by Ellen Morgan coming out.Ellen DeGeneres is a unique talent, with deadpan delivery and a habit of talking nervously and trailing off mid-sentence which is very, very funny. She also has a decent knack for physical comedy. Surrounding herself with a great cast, well-developed characters and scriptwriters, the show was delightful.In the finale, Ellen Morgan is interviewed as a living legend, and her life is shown going back to the 1920s and takes her up to the "big reveal" on her sitcom - which isn't what you think it's going to be. Hilarious, and so well done.I don't know what kind of person Ellen is, except that she's an animal lover and has family support -- but everything she does, including her talk show, has an aura of warmth and high spirits. "Ellen" the sitcom was no exception, and if you didn't watch it when it was on the air, check it out. It's still very fresh.

policy134 There are not many successful female stand-up comedians and I never understood why so many of them are... well not funny. Ellen is a very funny woman and her show "Ellen" was of course based on her stand-up act. Maybe she's funny because of her rapid-fire line delivery or the way she recites her lines with a kind of nervous insecurity. Basically, she is the whole show here because the supporting characters don't really add much. In the first season there were two other female characters named Holly and Anita (played by perennial recurring character Maggie Wheeler) but they were too normal. They basically just reacted to Ellen. Adam, played by Arye Gross, was a whiny windbag and remained so his entire run.Things improved with the addition of Joely Fisher who is actually quite funny too (I can't believe she didn't have a bigger role in The Mask"). She was more of an equal to Ellen and let's not forget she is totally hot. Then the Adam character was dropped in favor of Ellen's reprehensible cousin, Spence (well played by Jeremy Piven). If you saw him in the movie "Lucas" you could say that this is the character as a grownup. The really annoying addition was Clea Lewis as Audrey, the spoiled socialite. She is such an easy target for ridicule that it's amazing that Ellen puts up with her.There has been a lot of writing about the "Coming Out" episode, especially among the other commentators. Luckily, I haven't seen those episodes that followed it, so I will not comment on that. I will say that whether she did or did not come out, I always had a suspicion that she was in fact gay from the first time i saw the show and it didn't really change my opinion of her or the show. But sadly, show business is a fickle business and few has enough courage to fight controversy. Still, it's funny that a show like Will and Grace was so successful if gays are ill seen in show business.(To be continued on The Ellen Show commentary)

NSJ0309-1 This was one of the funniest shows I had ever seen until the last season. The characters were hilarious, the was an amazing chemistry between the whole cast, and the scripts were well written. In the last season, however, it went from being a show about Ellen and her friends, to a show about Ellen being gay, and *nothing* else! This not only took away from the show's dynamic, but it completely alienated almost all of her audience. I think it was a poor choice to focus only on her sexuality. I hope that her new CBS show is more like the first three years of her old one.