Strong and Moving!

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This show probably ended the notion of people trying to milk the Brady franchise for all its worth. The idea of trying to turn one of the corniest, but memorable, sitcoms in television history into an hour long drama is probably one of the worst ideas in the history of television. To me, the idea of the Brady's finally having real life problems is so absurd after the surrealism of the original series. Just thank God they didn't bring back cousin Oliver.

Completely unexpectantly, the two-hour pilot of this uh, series, casually began to play on my television set. For reasons beyond me, it was called "The Brady 500," which was quite cutesy, but I could still tell it was the 'movie' that led to "The Brady's," a very dramatic one hour drama that reunites the they're together so often I'm surprised they're NOT a real family family of the Brady's... you know, Mike, Carol, Greg, Marica (a faux Marcia, not Maureen McCormack)... yes, THOSE Brady's from the corny sitcom "The Brady Bunch," only their lives are not so funny anymore.In "The Brady 500" Mike and Carol are basically the same, as is Alice, the "goofy" housekeeper, whom I think is either still working for them, or just hangs out at their house too often. Greg is married with child (a young Johnathan Taylor Thomas...which was not thrilling news to discover) and is an Obstitrician; Marcia is still married to Wally (from "The Brady Brides"), who's main talent seems to be losing jobs. His last one cost them their house, so they and their two precious children must move in with Mike and Carol; Peter is some womanizer (of all characters) who's been engaged four times, but can never find the right girl; Jan does not seem to enjoy communicating with her family much (stubborn middle child) unless it involves telling them all of her problems, which involve she and hubby Phillip (also of "The Brady Brides") and their inablity to have children; Cindy is a deejay, who is attracted to her older, widowed boss, and Bobby...well, he WAS a budding race car driver who gets PARALYZED during some big, important race. Oh, the horror. How will the rest of the Brady's cope with this dramatic struggle.Actually, Bobby's paralysis really seemed to take a back burner as the last forty minutes or so seemed to involve his love life with a jilted fiance, Tracy...whom he ends up marrying; as well as Wally's casually getting a new job (truly, nobody seemed to care when he announced it), and Jan and Phillip deciding to adopt and ending up with not a baby, but a young Korean girl, who seemed to only communicate by whispering in her new mommy's or daddy's ear. I guess other episodes probably dealt with Bobby CONTINUING to deal with his handicap--as well as a new wife; Jan and Phil's adjustments; Wally's new job, etc. I believe other plots also involved Mike running for--and winning--a seat on Congress; Marcia *howl with laughter* being an alcoholic, and many other dramatic, tensing situations. I think the Brady's even had to (oh dear) MOVE!!!!!Quality-wise, I found "The Brady 500" about on par with "A Very Brady Christmas," which means it passed the time, but wasn't all that great. The thing I had to wonder was, what was the point of reuniting the Brady family for a dramatic series, when everyone knows them as the corny, "comedic" Brady's. It presents a concept too hard to swallow (the three flashbacks to the original series did not help...and Dabs "Reverand Alden" Greer as the minister in Bobby's wedding cornily referring to Mike and Carol's wedding did not do much to help me take it seriously, either), which is probably why it didn't exactly go on to last for YEARS or even one year, I believe.

This is probably a first for television: reuniting the cast of a late 60s/early 70s sitcom for an hour-long DRAMA series. Well, CBS did just that, based on the success of the 1988 TV movie, A Very Brady Christmas. This was after the concept was already revived in the 1970s as a variety show, in the 1980s as a sitcom focusing on Marcia and Jan, and now in the 1990s for what was affectionately dubbed "Brady-something." As you can imagine the effort simply did not work, because people did not want to see Bobby Brady paralyzed or Marcia as an alcoholic. The whole idea of a full time series based around the now adult Brady children and their parents about twenty years after the original series began without a hint of camp or irony was absurd and the show quickly tanked.

Just what were the writers and producers thinking when they decided to feature a family from a half-hour situation comedy in a new one-hour drama?? While it was nice to see a post-series Brady Bunch reunion TV-movie ("A Very Brady Christmas"), bringing them back in a new series was completely uncalled-for! A one-hour drama for a hilarious family just doesn't cut it. I didn't like the idea of Bobby being paralyzed. Too depressing! This 1990 revival made the "Brady Brides" look better.