This show was terrible. It was totally devoid of the elements which made the film a great spectacle to watch in the first place. Generally, sitcom spin-offs of movies do not work well because once you are a fan of the original film and familiarise yourself with the ideas, conventions and themes, one would be sceptical of how the TV version would pan out. My Big Fat Greek Life however is a terrible sitcom. In fact, it could've worked well as a multi-camera sitcom, as opposed to a single lens one and by means of getting rid of the canned laughter, not to mention a massive improvement on the scripts. Therefore, as a dramedy, the show might have been a success in that sense, but as a straight laced situation comedy, I am not so sure.
I don't know what on earth CBS and the writers of My Big Fat Greek Life were thinking of back then, but this attempt of theirs to cash in on the film's success, backfired. The humour was sorely lacking, the jokes and one-liners were unfunny and poor and for a sitcom it had sort of a 'cheap' grade C feel to it. It also felt like it was forced on the public, particularly those of whom were fans of the hit movie itself. They had considerable expectations that My Big Fat Greek Life will succeed on the small screen, just as it did on the big screen but were let down by poor material, unfunny dialogue and situations. The so-called jokes centering around Greek culture and references to Greek people were lamely executed and ineffective which didn't garner enough laughs. All in all, it comes across as being cheesy and second-rate.
Even though I am not keen on sequels, I'd rather see a film sequel to My Big Fat Greek Wedding than revamp the whole franchise by means of churning out a sitcom/TV show based on the film and making unnecessary alterations, such as cast and character name changes, which weren't needed at all. The film was funny and involving in many respects- MBFGL the sitcom on the other hand was not and unsurprisingly it was short-lived.
This was a big fat huge error on the part of the producers, writers, creators and the network itself.
I don't know what on earth CBS and the writers of My Big Fat Greek Life were thinking of back then, but this attempt of theirs to cash in on the film's success, backfired. The humour was sorely lacking, the jokes and one-liners were unfunny and poor and for a sitcom it had sort of a 'cheap' grade C feel to it. It also felt like it was forced on the public, particularly those of whom were fans of the hit movie itself. They had considerable expectations that My Big Fat Greek Life will succeed on the small screen, just as it did on the big screen but were let down by poor material, unfunny dialogue and situations. The so-called jokes centering around Greek culture and references to Greek people were lamely executed and ineffective which didn't garner enough laughs. All in all, it comes across as being cheesy and second-rate.
Even though I am not keen on sequels, I'd rather see a film sequel to My Big Fat Greek Wedding than revamp the whole franchise by means of churning out a sitcom/TV show based on the film and making unnecessary alterations, such as cast and character name changes, which weren't needed at all. The film was funny and involving in many respects- MBFGL the sitcom on the other hand was not and unsurprisingly it was short-lived.
This was a big fat huge error on the part of the producers, writers, creators and the network itself.