  Horror has a new name, and that name is Everybody Loves Raymond. By itself, it's not completely horrible. It's certainly much more watchable than a lot of other family-centred sitcoms on the air (primarily I'm thinking about the abysmal Reba, but there's certainly a lot of other examples).
What irks me is how channel 10 have adopted Raymond as the jewel in its comedy crown. For a while, it was being aired no less than seven times a week with a mix of both new and old episodes in various timeslots. Two words. One hyphen: Over-kill. The show can actually be entertaining, there's the occasional inspired, funny moment. It just simply isn't that good. In no way does it have the watchability of a show like Seinfeld, or Frasier. Both shows tend to be repeated pretty frequently lately, and I'm still yet to get sick of either despite how often I've seen the episodes. Everybody Loves Raymond does have two strengths. The first is Peter Boyle. Honestly, Boyle isn't great in this, but generally, Boyle always delivers the comedy and dramatic chops in anything he appears in.
Just take a look at his Emmy-Award winning performance in The X-Files episode Clyde Bruckmans Final Repose, or his gig as the monster in Young Frankenstein. The dude is gold. The second strength of the show is Brad Garrett, who has more or less become the focus of the show as Raymonds brother Robert. The guy plays his lethargic, wounded butterfly character like no other ever could. The guy simply screams for you to pay attention to him with just his standard frowning glance. Currently, however, Garrett is fighting with the producers of the show over a pay dispute. He hasn't turned up to work for two weeks running as a ploy to get paid at a similar scale to his fellow cast-members. This morning I found this article online: As the squabbles over salary continue between Brad Garrett and CBS, Garrett has decided not to report to the set of EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND for another week. Yesterday, RAYMOND producer Phil Rosenthal decided to give Garrett the finger by giving co-stars Patricia Heaton, Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts a cut of the producing pie for the show.
Each actor will get half a percentage point ownership in the show, which means they will profit about $5 to 7 million dollars. Producers have already cut Garrett out of the season premiere already and will likely do so for the second episode. Source: Hollywood Reporter That's just madness. The show is in what they declare to be the final season. Just pay the guy some cash and put up with him on set for a couple of months. He's really the only reason the show has been occasionally watchable.
He might be an arsehole, but he's certainly bringing a lot more of the funny than the succubus Patricia Heaton. The woman needs a cross and a stake ASAP. I say, pay the dude, they'll have a better show for it in the long run. 
