TV Reviews
'Living with Ed,' if you really must
By Tom Conroy
Oct 21, 2009 - 1:41:06 AM

If you have enough time on your hands to perform all the chores involved in living a fully green lifestyle, you may have enough time to watch “Living With Ed.”

Most people probably have better things to do.

The series, which debuted on HGTV and is starting its third season at 9 p.m. tonight on Planet Green, is inoffensive. It takes the typical celebreality approach, putting its stars in a series of moderately contrived situations and having them overreact accordingly.

“Living With Ed” documents (and we use the term loosely) Begley’s efforts to lead as green a life as possible while his less environmentally conscious wife, Rachelle, strives to maintain some convenience and comfort in their lives.

The season premiere centers on Ed’s greener-than-thou rivalry with his neighbor, Bill Nye, who happens to host “Stuff Happens,” another series on Planet Green. When Ed brags that his solar panels produce more wattage than Bill’s, Bill proves that his electric car is faster than Ed’s.

Meanwhile, after Ed teaches Rachelle how to clean the solar panels, she decides to set up some lounging space on the roof, and he gets angry that her umbrella is keeping the sunlight from reaching the panels.

At this point, even the most naïve viewers will assume that these situations come straight out of a writers’ meeting. But if they’re going to seem so fake, shouldn’t they at least be interesting or funny?

Like most basic-cable reality programming, “Living With Ed” has brief recaps of the action after every commercial break. These just serve to underscore the triviality of what we’ve been watching.

All of the principals do their best to play roles that go back to the most ancient sitcoms. Ed and Rachelle are the bickering spouses; Bill is the wacky neighbor.

Ed does a good slow burn, but the comedy sometimes fails to sugarcoat what seems like real irritation.

At one point, Ed says that he’s teaching Rachelle how to care for the panels because someday he’ll be “not around” and she’ll have to find a young, handsome guy to clean them after she mourns for a weekend or so.

Later, when he teases her for saying “deem” when she means “deign,” one wonders if she would mourn even that long.

The green angle sets “Living With Ed” apart from most celebreality shows, but the season premiere contains surprisingly little information that interested viewers could use to make their own lives more earth-friendly.

During a break in the action, Ed tells viewers they can go to the network’s web site for tips on green living. Many will probably realize that one painless way to save on electricity would be to turn the show off.



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