Looking Back at "Everybody Loves Raymond"

            “Everybody Loves Raymond” was one of those sitcoms that I grew up watching with my family. The acting and writing are great, and they have excellent episodes and scenarios. But as I grow older I find myself having a slightly harder time rewatching many of the episodes. Granted there are a lot of episodes that I think are absolute gems and still hold up, making me laugh out loud, such as the one with the Civil War reenactment, the one where they all discuss the meaning of life, and Marie’s sculpture. But honestly a lot of them now make me almost kind of cringe. As I look back on many of the episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” I think to myself, “This marriage has no reason for being. Raymond and Debra need to get divorced.”

            As I watched it growing up I thought to myself, “Well I guess this is kind of what marriage is like.” I thought this with mixed emotions to say the least. Granted even growing up I knew that the characters of “Everybody Loves Raymond” lived in a somewhat exaggerated hyper-reality; Ray was chronically lazy and oftentimes cowardly, Debra could often be bitter and angry (who could blame her!), and the rest of their family is in their business. But even knowing that this sitcom very much took place in Sitcom World, I wondered, “Is this pretty much what every marriage is like?”

            Ray and Debra go from the pilot to the series finale living right across the street from Ray’s parents, causing shenanigans to say the least. Marie is constantly critical of every little thing that Debra does and makes no secret of it. Ray seldom ever actually stands by his wife’s side. While watching the show I was typically on the side of Debra (with maybe a few anomalies). And looking back I think, “I don’t think Ray and Debra are good for each other. They seem very toxic.”

            One scenario I can think of that shows just how dysfunctional they are is the one episode titled “Baggage,” in which they argue over putting away a suitcase. After coming home from a trip they leave a suitcase on the stairs, and it becomes an entire battle that lasts weeks. Ultimately the argument deep down wasn’t just about a suitcase but was a power struggle to say the least. Each is afraid that if they give in and put away the suitcase, that they’ll be surrendering power in their marriage. By the end of the episode they’re still fighting over this crazy, petty situation.

            As an aside, if I had been the writer of the episode I would have written it differently. It would have ended with the suitcase being put away, not by either Ray or Debra, but by their daughter Allie. She would have said, “I noticed the suitcase hadn’t been put away so I went ahead and got it done.” Either Ray or Debra would have said, “Thanks. That was really sweet of you.” When Allie left the scene Ray and Debra would have turned to one another and said to each other, “Oh my God! Our children are more mature than we are!”

            Anyway, back to the main topic. Now, I know that every marriage has its issues. I’m sure even the best marriages have their occasional struggles. But the dynamic between Ray and Debra’s marriage seemed far beyond normal. It might have honestly been interesting to see the dynamic change with Ray and Debra divorcing, or at least separating. How do the kids handle it? How does everyone else in the family react? And it would have been nice to see them go through that and ultimately change (hopefully for the better). Maybe Ray would have finally grown more as a person rather than be a perpetually adolescent (I’ve honestly seen plenty of adolescents in real life act more mature than the character Ray).

            As another aside, Debra’s parents in the series got divorced. Granted they had their issues but they seemed small in comparison to the marriages between Ray and Debra and between Marie and Frank.

            There might have been a ton of reasons why Ray and Debra stayed together during the entire run of the series. The show lasted nine seasons from 1996 to 2005. This was before streaming became a major force in home entertainment. Hulu wouldn’t arrive until 2007, with Netflix expanding from DVD rentals to streaming that same year. Before then, people watched TV differently. Many shows during their entire run, no matter how many years went by, had their characters more or less stay the same with little growth. This format makes a little more sense when you consider the fact that people would usually watch a new episode once a week rather than watch an entire season in perhaps one sitting. With the former format if you missed one or two episodes, you wouldn’t usually miss too much since most of the stories were all within one tight episode rather than expanding and evolving over entire seasons.

            Now perhaps if “Everybody Loves Raymond” was being made now rather than back in the later 1990s, things maybe would have been different plot wise. I’m not saying that getting a divorce is an ideal situation, or an easy decision, but some people are honestly better off separating rather than spending the rest of their lives together. Instead of Ray and Debra perpetually sighing at the end of every episode and being at least somewhat miserable, maybe they would have gotten divorced in the middle of the series, or at least temporarily separated, and this would have had a ripple effect over the entire cast of characters. Maybe the characters (especially Ray) would have actually had significant growth as people. Maybe the sitcom could have told the audience, “Hey, things in your life don’t have to stay the same.”

Note: Along with this blog, I am also working on a fantasy novel, and am putting up the chapters of the first draft one at a time. You can view the novel, "The Princess of Infinite Tomorrows," at https://princessofinfinitetomorrows.blogspot.com/.