Very well executed

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

One of three television sitcoms starring Bob Newhart, "Newhart" is an ensemble comedy that features a strange set of supporting characters arrayed around Bob's droll, laconic character, Dick Loudon. Bob is always the observer, commenting on the strange reality of his world.Dick and his wife run a Vermont inn. Frequent visitors are Tom Poston, who plays a similarly droll handyman; brothers Larry, Darryl and Darryl, who appear to be halfwits, but offer surprisingly erudite comments; and lovebirds Peter Scolari and Julia Duffy--privileged preppies with expensive tastes and elevated senses of self-worth who live off the largesse of her wealthy parents.The writing is suited to Bob's style. And the show's lyrical theme, by Henry Mancini, fits perfectly.

First, my rating of 10 out of 10 is for the seasons where I feel the show was strongest. If I had to give an overall rating, it would be a high 8 or low 9.I've written in other places that I feel vintage Newhart is seasons 3-6. The first two with Kirk and the previous maid seem like a different show sometimes; and the last two seasons contain a lot of jump-the-shark moments.I understand there will be people who really love the more outlandish plots of the final seasons, but recently after watching two season 7 episodes, my feelings were re-confirmed about how much I dislike the writing at that stage of the series.I think they really ruin Michael when they give him the nervous breakdown. In the episode called 'One and a Half Million Dollar Man, the scenes with him as the mime in the restaurant while Stephanie is on a date with an old friend were completely over the top. Even the subplot with Larry & the Darryls knowing Stephanie's friend intimately required too much suspension of disbelief. It's like the show was going for high camp jokes and sacrificing character development at this point. In earlier seasons, we certainly would not have had Larry and his brothers as people who went to New York to see Broadway shows on the down-low. It's funny, but this isn't true to their characters and their overall presentation as backwoods stereotypes.The next episode 'The Little Match Girl' brings Eileen Brennan back as Corinne, an illustrator that worked with Dick on an earlier book. There is no way someone like Dick would have been so dumb as to sign her out of a mental institution without checking out what caused her to be placed there in the first place. And it's completely painful watching Michael languish in the sanitarium. The scene where Stephanie visits him was dominated by a bald roommate trying to make a move on Stephanie, and there was hardly any exchange between Stephane and Michael about what put him there and where their relationship had gone wrong. Again, solid characterization sacrificed for campy scenes with nutty patients and over the top jokes. Of course, I am not saying all the episodes in the last two seasons do not work-- but many of them are off on such a weird tangent that it's difficult to watch. At its heart, in the glory seasons from the third until the sixth year (with better writers and producers) we have a Rockwell view of life in a small New England hamlet, full of charm and slightly eccentric characters. But all of that just gets carelessly thrown by the wayside in season 7 and they had no real way to explain the ridiculous story choices and direction of the characters without making it Dick's dream at the end. And that in itself was ridiculous because nobody would have a dream with 184 separate, consecutive stories in it-- unless he was in a coma and had been sleeping for a long time-- not to mention he covered years of hairstyle changes, clothing changes and changes in technology in a deep sleep? A sad way to watch this show go, when it was truly one of the best things on television for those four middle years.

Bob Newhart is probably one of the funniest comics in American history. He brought clean and wholesome entertainment to American television before the days of cable access. This show, his second TV series, is very enjoyable to watch and the characters are funny to the bone.There are several episodes that make me laugh by just thinking about them. Examples being "The Great White Buck", "Pick on Dick", or the episode where Dick stays on the air to do a TV marathon in which Stephanie has to sing "Old Man River" to get him off the set. Not to count any of the Larry , Darrell, and Darrell or "Sweater Girl" episodes.I can't wait for this classic sitcom to come to DVD. Newhart is a classic ! Bob Newhart is a great American !

That's how I describe "Newhart" in one word. I've always enjoyed Bob Newhart's dry humor and wit.I liked almost all of the characters on the show. The only one I wished stayed for the entire run was Kirk Devane (Steven Kampmann). He was hilarious the way he lies and the one episode that sticks out with me was when he produced and stared in his own commercial with Dick's wife Joanna for his diner. He does the commercial like the old Ronco ads from the 70s ("How much would you pay for this hamburger? Well don't answer yet...."). Then he says Joanna paid this outrageous price and the look on her face was priceless.The other episode that sticks out with me was when Dick goes to a Boston Celtics game and has courtside seats. He apparently gets kicked out of the seat I believe because it was someone else's seats and he had to stand outside in the aisle area. Then I believe it was Larry Bird goes hobbling out of the game to the Celtic's team clubhouse, which became the perfect set up for the parody of the "Mean" Joe Greene Coke commercial from 1980. That was a classic. The final episode was the best and ultimate way to end the show. One of the biggest "curve balls" was thrown. This was one ending you could never see coming.A bit of trivia: Larry and the 2 Darryls were originally planned by the writers to appear in about 2-4 episodes and were to be written off shortly thereafter. Since "Newhart" was taped in front of a studio audience, the audience would cheer, applaud and holler when the trio walked in the door, then the introduction would follow: "Hi, I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl and this is my other brother Darryl". That would then follow with more cheers and applause or laughs. It was said, that the studio audience kept the trio from being written off the show.