Kailansorac
Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
Sanjeev Waters
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Aryana
Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
liquidcelluloid-1
Network: WB; Genre: Sitcom; Content Rating: TV-PG (for adult content); Classification: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4); Season Reviewed: Complete Series (2 seasons) I don't know why anybody would do this, but if you trace the career path of Nikki Cox you will find yourself tripping over "Nikki" on the way from a brief role in the cult favorite "The Norm Show" to the mainstream hit "Las Vegas". In it you will find the WB spending away like a drunken sailor whatever capital Cox accrued after her breakout role in their "Unhappily Ever After". My uncommon likeness of "Unhappily" is on record. Yes, it was a "Married…with Children" rip-off, but I think it is one of the best bad shows on the air and one of the gutsiest shows the WB has seen. With Cox's popularity on the rise it only made sense to try to give this supporting character actress her chance at a lead role.But the reason Cox has been successful, and remains successful, is because she or her agents know her limitations and have the foresight to take an actress known more for her assets not related to acting than her comic ability (which isn't nonexistent) and give her a supporting role or surround her with real pros. "Nikki" is the first, and hopefully, last time where they slipped up and bit off more than they can chew. Cox's inability to carry the series is the least of the reasons "Nikki" is a painful to watch garbage dump. If I had a "Hate, Hate, Hate" book like Roger Ebert, this show would certainly be in there.Cox is not without comic ability, "Norm" and "Unhappily" proved she can deliver a deadpan one-liner as well as anybody. But you could put brilliant comic actors in the lead here and the show would still be a disaster. It was an ill-conceived series from the get-go. The smartest and safest way to approach a star vehicle with an unproven star would have been to spin off her brains-and-beauty Tiffany character from "Unhappily" out into college or the working world. That, people would have watched. But no. Creator Bruce Helford with longtime teammate Deborah Oppenheimer (both of star vehicles as "The Drew Carey Show") do all the legwork to contrive this hokey new idea. Cox plays a Las Vegas showgirl living in a rundown apartment with her deadbeat wrestler husband Dwight (Nick Von Esmarch). Both have big dreams and as they scrape miserably to achieve them, hilarity ensues – at least for the laugh-track, some of us humans may need to be talked off a ledge after a viewing.The sloppy writing, having none of the bite of "Unhappily", is chained to the show's go-nowhere premise – it nothing more than a half-thought-out mechanism to get Cox in a wide variety of Las Vegas showgirl outfits. While the skimpy outfits of her former series placated the pubescent male audience just fine, Helford must have thought this would just drive them bonkers. Like everything else in the show, it's overkill. Because they don't shop and spend as much as the opposite sex, teenage boys are a demographic rarely exclusively played to on network TV (seriously) and the show-runners in the room probably had no idea what this alien life form would want.This takes me directly to another confounding misconception in this mess. Maybe the biggest in a gutter-level series like this. I have to wonder whose idea it was for our hot young sexpot to be married. The show falls in with a dozen other sitcoms in which the fat slob is blessed with a hot wife and takes it for granted. While it is not blindly followed conventional network wisdom that this has to be the set-up so the schleps that watch TV can cathartically fantasize about getting a hot wife of their own, I hope there was at least one voice at the planning table who thought keeping their sex symbol single and available was a better idea.I'm reminded of the classic "The Simpsons" episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet" where his agent tells Homer not to wear his wedding ring on the road because "women will want to have sex with you and we want them to think they can". I'm stunned real networks so rarely think like this. It's a shallow business, but even worse is a shallow series that doesn't know that it is shallow and expects us to go through these hum-drum motions.½
Joyela
The first season of this show is absolutely hilarious. Some people don't like the dark ride, as evidenced by the cool reception given to the similarly-themed John Larroquette Show, but I do! The opening dance numbers were delightfully tacky, and the love story of Nikki and Dwight was sweet and sincere. I'm glad actress Nikki Cox continues on TV on NBC's Las Vegas, but it's a shame she couldn't have brought castmates Nick von Esmarch, Susan Egan, and the eternally-underappreciated Toby Huss with her (hang in there, Toby; it took *decades* for Joe Pantoliano to get his due, too). Alas, the good times ended with the second season, with Steve Valentine's exit (to Crossing Jordan), Nikki & Dwight losing their showgirl and wrestler jobs, and the re-focus of the show to the "wacky neighbors" in their apartment building. Huh??! Yuck!! Naturally the few fans the show had acquired left in droves, and the show died a quick death. I see the show has been enjoying distribution all over the world now (Portugal?!). Woe to those who have stumbled upon the later eps -- when they could have been outside watching grass grow, a far more entertaining way to pass the time.
lalazulu
"Nikki" is the biggest load of rubbish that I have ever seen. The fact that the same channel in Australia that bought this tripe bought the equally as terrible "Girlfriends" says a lot, and none of it's good. I only watched this show once, and that was enough. The only saving grace are the occassional humourous 'I'm a big dumb idiot' comments that we get from Dwight. Nikki Cox doesn't seem to understand the concept of comic timing - and as a result her jokes often fall flat. Where is the director on this set? He/she ought to be shot. As should the writers, producers, actors, and all the people in the WB offices that allowed this 'show' to go to air. Even re-runs of Burgo's Catch Phrase (you Aussies out there know what i'm on about) would be better. Nikki (and her huge breasts in tight tshirts) can go elsewhere, as far as I'm concerned. THIS SHOW BITES!
RJBose
"Unhappily Ever After", the previous Nikki Cox centered program, was an unashamed clone of "Married With Children" with the buxom Miss Cox playing the "Kelly Bundy" role of the pretty young woman, (although played as intelligent and pretty as opposed to Kelly's dumb and pretty). It began with a different premise, (about a talking rabbit puppet and a divorced set of parents) but languished (not surprisingly)and quickly degenerated into a show centered around Miss Cox's character. This was filled with the usual sit-com banalities uttered to the uproarious approval of the laugh track while featuring Miss Cox's formidable figure with leering delight.The new show (the WB Network must really be hurting) is designed as a vehicle for Miss Cox, and her most noticeable attributes. Sadly, these are her only attributes. Miss Cox is supposed to be a Las Vegas dancer married to a WWF-type professional wrestler. She is far too gawky and clumsy to be a dancer (despite her alleged professional history in dance and the labored and elaborate dance numbers in which she is so prominently featured in the opening credits) and the "wrestler" wouldn't have made the cut at any Division II school; he too is a gawky chump. Neither character is likable and neither is funny, although the husband is not as gratingly unpleasant as Miss Cox. They are sad losers talking about poverty, drunkenness and unemployment. What a barrel of laughs!We are supposed to be amused by their young-and-in-love antics as they struggle in marriage, but instead are subjected to her shrill rantings and unfunny facial contortions as the usual platitudes of sit-com plots are warmed over and served. The most amazing part of this is that you can tell Miss Cox thinks all she has to do is show up and lumber around the set emoting either of her two unfunny modes of "acting" (the caring wife and aggressive young professional) and people will tune in and laugh, just because it's her, Nikki!. Nobody would watch this show but for a glimpse of Miss Cox's ample cleavage (prominently displayed and sniggeringly commented upon in the scripts) for there is precious little else to see. Two ostensible "friends" have been manufactured for them as foils, but just seem like even bigger jerks than Nikki and her husband. Why would they be friends with these people (a conniving wrestling promoter and fellow dance-girl loser)? The parallel with Married With Children continues as dorky neighbors, an uptight shrew and a dopey meek husband wander by from time to time. Why not just call them Marcy and Steve? (the actress who played Marcy is directing this mess- what a surprise!).The key of any of the successful TV shows has been that the audience develops an affinity for the lead characters, and likes them. Vehicles pinning their hopes simply on a "celebrity" (particularly a third-rate celebrity) fail without good writing; remember Jenny McCarthy's pathetic attempts?Spare us from this misery WB, just show the old cartoons or Star Trek (original) episodes you have lying around. Nikki Cox is not funny, and this show just plain stinks.
