“It was totally weird until four hours in, when
it was weird that it wasn’t weird,” Hunt said of
stepping on to the new set. “I looked at Paul and
went, ‘Did we just take a three-month break?
What’s happening?’”
Gone is the original’s stellar recurring cast: Mel
Brooks, Carroll O’Connor and Cyndi Lauper
among them, along with a slew of notable guest
stars: Ellen DeGeneres, Yoko Ono and Carl Reiner,
to name a few.
Also gone is their thick-headed collie mix
Murray, replaced by a lanky mixed breed dog
they decide to call Walter.
Spectrum’s first round includes six episodes,
with six more to follow on Dec. 18 as Paul and
Jamie recalibrate as empty nesters.
The new series, Reiser said, “is about Paul and
Jamie finding their mojo again. And how do
we get back? Because we ain’t the people we
used to be.”
Yes and no.
After hundreds of hours of couples therapy back
in the ’90s, Jamie decides to become a therapist
herself. As for Paul, his barely off the ground
documentary film career didn’t happen. He’s
making a commercial for male catheters instead.
“We always endeavored to sound more like
real life than a TV show,” Reiser said. “And I think
more than anyone, Helen, surprisingly, maybe
surprisingly, is the one who would say, ‘But it’s
got to be funny. Let’s not forget that this is a
half-hour comedy.’”
A half-hour comedy intended as friendly
fare then and now, with no politics or plots
tackling out-on-a-limb issues of the day.