Ned and Stacey: Short-Lived Shows We Loved II

            After our previous salute to the excellent short-lived series Dead Like Me, we now turn to an even more tragic tale, the tale of Ned and Stacey.  While Debra Messing's later homage to all things queer, Will & Grace, went on for season after asinine season, making us laugh in spite of ourselves even as our IQs plunged with every episode, her earlier, far more intelligent series was killed after only two seasons, just as it was poised to really get good.  The key to Ned and Stacey, a show about two shallow people who contract a fake marriage for the purposes of mutual exploitation (the tag line: "To get a promotion, I needed a wife.  To get a life, I needed his apartment") was that the show was not just about them, but also about Stacey's sister Amanda and her husband Eric.

            Eric and Amanda Moyer served as a foil to the eponymous couple of the series.  The healthy, loving, and fecund relationship they shared (they had one son, and Amanda was pregnant as the series ended) contrasted strongly with the selfish, sterile, and exploitative union of Ned and Stacey. (Amanda establishes the nature of her relationship with Eric in the first episode when she says, "Eric?  He's an idiot.  But he's sweet and I love him. In the real world, that's a good relationship.")  The fun of the show came not only from the contrast between the two couples, but also from Ned's lovable narcissistic sociopath personality.  While Stacey sought in her many sexual encounters some vaguely defined Mr. Right (never yet guessing how far she had to go before she could hope to meet the very standard by which she judged), and often pretended to one form or another of moral superiority—even as she schlepped from one moral disaster to the next—Ned appeared free of any moral qualms or complexities.  His goal was the promotion of his career and the pursuit of random women—no liberal social conscience disrupting him as he exercised his will to power.  Still, his narcissism was qualified by his friendship with Eric (whom he referred to affectionately as “Rico”) and the occasional burst of human compassion.

            It was in Ned and Stacey that we first discovered the great talent of Thomas Haden Church, who would go on to play in such excellent films as Sideways and Smart People.  It is also here we find in Eric and Amanda Moyer one of the sweetest, most genuinely realistic versions of a married couple in any sitcom; a thing made possible by their secondary role in the story.  It is a shame that people did not recognize the wit of this show soon enough to keep it on the air longer.  It is an even greater shame that--to this day—they have only released the first season on DVD [they have since released the entire series.  Yes!].  Still, we remember Ned and Stacey, and we hope that somehow , more quality television can be made, before the tide of mediocrity washes us all out to sea, never to return to land again.