Dear John USA

For years, I thought this she show was an original and it was just "Okay" to me as a teenager growing up in the 80s and 90s. But I am now MUCH older and married to a Brit! Why's that so significant? Well we were just running down a list of shows we grew up watching both here in the US and in the UK. And guess what I discovered? The show is a complete KNOCK OFF! The British version is ALSO called "Dear John" and starts the same way! There's even an episode where an entire SCENE was copied. 😂 The British show ran from 1985-1986 and the US version in 1988. I feel so cheated! 😂 Either way, check them both out and decide for yourself.

This was such a sad show. A guy comes home one day and finds a letter from his wife. The theme song, also sad, it is sung from the perspective of the wife. You see him happily arriving at home, walking in the front door and then the trauma begins.

"Dear John, Dear John.

By the time you read these lines, I'll be gone.

Dear John, Dear John.

Life goes on, Right or wrong.

Dear John..."

It gets stuck in your head for some reason. Maybe it's because her voice is so sappy. In any event, it supposedly began as a British show, and they made an American version with it's own cast. John Lacey comes home to find out his wife has left him by reading a typical "Dear John" letter. Doesn't that scream sitcom? John then goes to a support group where all the comedy lies. The other members of the group have their own quirks. John also has little encounters with random singles. Not that great of a show although I like Judd Hirsch.

In every week's opening, teacher John Lacey (Judd Hirsch) gets his Dear John letter, gets cleaned out in court, and loses his home all to that catchy little diddy. His wife and his best friend took everything including his son. He attends the One To One Club, a support group for divorcees and widowers. Louise Mercer (Jane Carr) is the Brit group leader divorced from her kinky husband who keeps asking everyone, "Are there any sexual problems?" The group includes sleazy Kirk Morris (Jere Burns), sweet Kate McCarron (Isabella Hofmann), clueless pushover Ralph Drang (Harry Groener), silent Tom (Tom Willett), elderly fox Mrs. Margie Philbert (Billie Bird), and starting midway in season two, southern belle Mary Beth Sutton (Susan Walters).

This is a solid network sitcom of its era. It's led by some solid TV stars. Hirsch has played this character well arguably since his Taxi days. Burns is a fantastic comedic sleaze. It's a wacky group of friends who serve more as family. Everybody is great. It tackles divorce with a little humor. It's good-nature with some bite. This is not going on any top TV lists but it functions well for what it is. It's a good middling sitcom while it lasted.

This is a funny TV series, because the title character, played by Judd Hirsch, is willing to be a straight man to the other characters in a support group he attends.

In essence, much as "Good Times" is Kid Dynamite's show, this is really Jere Burns show as he portrays the rogue, Kirk. Kirk is just enough of a rascal to cherish and laugh at, both at the same time.

The others put in a dash of humor, too, one of them without ever saying a word.

The standard for comedy in the eighties was a comedy that would make people laugh. That's what this show did. It din't try to be too "situational", and hope for a smile, the way most comedies of the nineties and naughts do. It reached for the guts, and pulled them out.

This wasn't "slapstick", but just a bit shy of it. It jumped the shark a bit at the end, and that didn't work. It was best when staying true to its character of the support group.

Dry and listless. Cliche and morose. Obnoxious casting. These are the type of people who hold up the line because they want to complain at the deli counter. No wonder his wife left him.