Country of origin United States Original network TV Land | No. of episodes 10 | |
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Original release June 16 (2010-06-16) – August 18, 2010 (2010-08-18) | ||
The first season of the Hot in Cleveland, an American situation comedy television series, aired in the United States on TV Land. The series was the channel's first venture into scripted television series. Created by television producer and writer Suzanne Martin, the show was produced by Hazy Mills Productions, SamJen Productions, TV Land Original Productions while Martin, Sean Hayes, Todd Milliner, Lynda Obst, Larry W. Jones, and Keith Cox served as executive producers. The show focuses on three women from Los Angeles who unexpectedly crash land in Cleveland, Ohio and, enthralled by the attention the receive, decide to move there. The series stars Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves as the three Los Angeles women Melanie Moretti, Victoria Chase, and Joy Scroggs. Veteran actress Betty White also stars in the series as Elka Ovstrosky, the women's sassy caretaker. The season also featured numerous guest stars, including John Schneider, Susan Lucci, Carl Reiner and Joe Jonas.
Contents
Consisting of ten episodes, the first season aired from June 16 to August 18, 2010 on Wednesdays at 10:00 p.m. EST. The series debuted to 4.75 million viewers, becoming the most watched program on the channel and more than quintupling their viewership. The season ended with the finale "Tornado", which attracted 3.40 million viewers. The season averaged 3.12 million viewers per episode and a 0.8 Nielsen rating. Hot in Cleveland also aired in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom to ratings success. Critical reception for the series was positive, with many television critics praising the main cast's performance, most notably White, and the series as "well-acted" and "funny." Hot in Cleveland also garnered several comparisons to the 1980s NBC sitcom The Golden Girls, which White also starred in.
The entire season was released on DVD in Region 1 on January 11, 2011, Region 2 on April 25, 2011, and Region 4 on February 17, 2011.
Production
Hot in Cleveland is TV Land's first venture into scripted comedy and is produced by Sean Hayes's Hazy Mills Productions and created by Suzanne Martin, who also serves as the showrunner. Hayes and Martin, along with Lynda Obst, Larry W. Jones, and Keith Cox, serve as the series' executive producers. Staff writers employed for the season include Martin, Liz Feldman, Anne Flett-Giordano, writing and production duo Sam Johnson and Chris Marcil, Vanessa McCarthy, and Chuck Ranberg. Andy Cadiff, Gil Junger, Michael Lembeck and David Trainer were hired as directors for the season's episodes. The series is shot with a multicamera setup in front of a live studio audience at the CBS Studio City soundstage.
Cast
The series employs a regular of four main actors. Valerie Bertinelli portrays Melanie Moretti, the girl-next-door and best-selling author. Jane Leeves portrayed Rejoyla "Joy" Scroggs, a British born beautician who is cynical and suspicious of everyone. Wendie Malick played Victoria Chase, a vain veteran actress from a recently cancelled soap opera television series who longs for the fame she once experienced. Betty White plays Elka Ostrovsky, a sassy elderly caretaker with a renewed sex life and a general dislike of Joy. In keeping with the theme of TV Land, the cast is composed of actors who appeared in sitcoms that were syndicated on the network. Bertinelli appeared in the 1970 sitcom One Day at a Time (1975). Leeves starred in the Cheers spinoff Frasier (1993). Malick starred in the late 1990s NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me! (1997). White starred in the 1980s NBC hit sitcom The Golden Girls (1985).
During the season, the series employed a number of guest stars some of which appeared in more than one episode. Actor Carl Reiner guest starred as Max, Elka's boyfriend, in three episodes. David Starzyk portrayed Pete, a police officer who becomes romantically involved with Melanie. Bil Dwyer played Melanie's ex-husband Anders in two episodes. The pilot episode featured Tim Bagley as the realtor selling Melanie the house and John Schneider as Hank, a guy Melanie sleeps with on her first night in Cleveland. Actor Robert Gant appears in "Birthdates" as a blind date for Joy, who looks like a wanted killer. In the episode "The Sex That Got Away", musician Huey Lewis portrays rock legend and Victoria's former flame Johnny Revere while Amy Yasbeck portrays Hailey Nash, Melanie's favorite singer with whom she has an uncomfortable encounter. Wayne Knight appeared in "Good Neighbors" as the ladies neighbor Rick. "Meet the Parents" featured veteran actors Shirley Knight, Hal Linden and Juliet Mills portraying Melanie's mother Loretta, Victoria's father Alex and Joy's mother Philippa. Comedian and actor Tim Conway appears in "It's Not That Complicated" as Nick, a man fighting for Elka's love. The episode "The Play's the Thing" features guest actors Gary Anthony Williams and Mark Indelicato portraying Coach Taylor and Zach, a fan of Victoria, respectively. Singer-songwriter Joe Jonas appeared in the episode "Good Luck Faking the Goiter" as Melanie's son Will. Dave Foley also guest stars as Dr. Moore, an expert on the disease that Victoria claims to have. Soap opera actress Susan Lucci guest starred in the season finale "Tornado" as a fictionalized version of herself and Victoria's rival.
Viewership and ratings
The pilot episode for Hot in Cleveland premiered on TV Land on June 16, 2010 to 4.75 million viewers. The broadcast earned several distinctions for the network, including increasing viewership of the channel and garnering the highest ratings in the adults 18-49 and women aged 25–54 demographic. The season ended with the finale "Tornado", which was viewed by 3.40 million viewers. The season held an average of over 3.12 million viewers and a 0.8 Nielsen rating. The season's viewership average was more than four times the average of another original series on TV Land, Harry Loves Lisa, which had an average of 731,000 viewers.
In Canada, the series debuted on July 5, 2010 to 1.82 million viewers. The season ended on September 23, 2010 with 1.59 million viewers tuning in to the finale. In the United Kingdom, the first season of Hot in Cleveland aired on the Sky Living network and ranked among the top ten most-watched programs on the network each weak, with its peak viewership at 347,000 viewers. Hot in Cleveland's first season aired in Australia on the Nine Network during the summer of 2010. Each episode ranked within the top twenty most-watched programs on Monday nights, acquiring between 800,000 and 1.3 million viewers. In New Zealand, the season aired on TV2 more a year after its broadcast in the United States. The season averaged over 457,000 viewers per episode.
Critical reviews
Upon the premiere of the pilot episode, Hot in Cleveland received positive reviews from television critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from television critics, the show received an average score of 65, which indicates "generally favorable review", based on 23 reviews. Scott D. Pierce of Deseret News called the pilot "bright, funny and witty" while drawing comparisons to the 1980s NBC sitcom The Golden Girls. Philadelphia Inquirer writer Jonathan Storm deemed the series "funny and fresh" while noting that the actresses "appear to be having the time of their lives." Television columinst Brian Lowry, writing for Variety, spoke positively about the series, lauding the actresses performance and the comedic material utilized. Lowry added that the series "feels as though it could have been on a network lineup 20 years ago, which is surprisingly better than that sounds." Verne Gay, writing for Newsday, called the series "by-the-numbers sitcom with a couple of laughs, an inoffensive premise and four seasoned actresses who make the material much better than it is." Gay notably highlighted White's performance in the series, calling her timing "impeccable" and her "deadpan delivery flawless." TV Guide columnist Matt Roush had a less positive view about the series, writing "I simply hope Hot in Cleveland can give us more than the lukewarm pilot promises. Ohio deserves better, and so do these fabulous ladies."
The full season later went on receive positive reviews. Nick Hartel of DVD Talk deemed the season release as "Recommended". Praising the actresses performances and the mixture of "old sitcom shenanigans" with "a dose of the modern", Hartel called the series "a pleasant, well-acted, old-school sitcom" and "a series that those in need of a good laugh should check out." DVD Verdict writer Brett Cullum deemed the series "giddy silly fun with a rock solid cast and a star who's almost ninety years old." The staff at Us Weekly gave the season 3 and a half stars, writing that "Sitcom pros Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves clearly relish the chance to play rare TV characters -- clever, single middle-aged women -- in this sly series that just gets funnier." Zap2it writer Jay Robbins, writing for Los Angeles Times, praised the lead actresses performances in the season and called White "today's ultimate secret weapon for media success." Troy Patterson of Slate Magazine opined that "The only truly original thing about the show is that its humor feels pitched at an extremely strange audience: Its ideal viewer would seem to have developed all her expectations of what comedy is from watching traditional sitcoms and yet to have no memory of hearing these jokes the first 20 times around."
United Kingdom ratings
All viewing figures and ranks are sourced from BARB.