ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 3, 1996 TAG: 9608060029
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: DIANE HOLLOWAY COX NEWS SERVICE
When a popular sitcom about a loving couple ends the season with a gut-wrenching fight, viewers get mad ... really mad.
``I had people come up and hit me after that,'' Helen Hunt said.
``Me, too. Come right up and, bam!'' Paul Reiser said.
Fan abuse notwithstanding, the stars of NBC's ``Mad About You'' recently defended the angst Jamie and Paul Buchman put fans through in last season's finale. In the hour-long episode, after a previous episode in which Paul flirted with a colleague and Jamie actually kissed a co-worker, the couple argued, separated and then argued again. It was not an easy program to watch.
``We were really proud of what we got to do with that one,'' Reiser said in an interview with Hunt. ``Yeah, it did get serious, but that was something we had always intended to do. Helen and I talked about, at some point, they should hit a real skid. I don't know of any couple who doesn't get into some version of that.''
``I don't know that you could really do this subject matter and not have it get brutal once in a while,'' Hunt added. ``I would feel really cheated if I saw a show about a relationship that made it look easy.''
Reiser and Hunt seem as friendly and easygoing as their fictional counterparts, and it's a good thing, too. Their work together has been intense over the past four seasons, and their compatibility and timing are key to the show's success. So far, there have been no feuds, spats or unhappy on-set sparks.
``It's an unbelievably intimate, close working relationship, and I thank God every year that I have someone to work with who is kind, funny and talented,'' said Hunt, who hit it big this summer in ``Twister'' but has no plans to leave the series. ``I get to play real acting tennis with this person, because he's a wonderful actor.''
Reiser, who is co-executive producer of the show along with Larry Charles, created the show, based in part on his own relationship with his wife, and cast Hunt as his co-star. Next season, Hunt, who has participated in story and script meetings from the beginning, will be elevated from star to star/ producer.
``It doesn't really mean all that much. Well, it means a little,'' said Hunt. ``It's such a collaboration that it's hard to separate who does what. It just seemed appropriate that after a few years of doing that, we all give each other as much credit as possible.''
Reiser and Hunt apparently deserve equal credit - or blame - for the painful season finale that made so many people so mad. Flirting with affairs and a possible breakup, the couple teetered dangerously close to the edge.
``We were suddenly skating on thin ice,'' Hunt conceded. ``We could so easily have made it racy for the sake of racy or dramatic for the sake of dramatic or poke fun at it and make people feel ripped off. There were so many ways we didn't want it to go, and one very thin, laser-beam way that we did want it to go.''
By the end of the final episode, Paul and Jamie were back together, a little shaken by the rough seas they had navigated. When the series returns in September, the Buchmans will be back to their loving ways.
``We certainly don't want to have the next season have the tone the last couple of episodes had,'' Reiser said. ``It's exciting to watch, but it's not our intention to spend 22 episodes feuding.''
Executive producer Larry Charles said the near-breakup will resonate throughout the season, though.
``There's healing going on, and everything will be OK,'' Charles said. ``But it'll certainly deepen the nature of the relationship, the way a real marriage would be affected by it.''
When ``Mad About You'' begins its fifth season, Jamie will be pregnant. At the end of the hair-tearing argument in May, Jamie discovered she was pregnant, which she had been trying to become all season. The pregnancy will be the major story arc next season, and we can expect the wee babe to arrive during a rating period, probably the May sweeps.
``The plan was, when they had come through this dark spot, they would finally get what they'd been hoping for - they get pregnant,'' said Reiser, whose wife had a baby in real life last year. ``We thought it really seemed right to just say, now here's your little icing on the cake, your little glimpse of the future, which is this child.''
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser star as Jamie and Paulby CNBBuchman in ``Mad About You,'' airing Tuesday at 8 p.m. on
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