Dharma & Greg
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Template:Infobox television Dharma & Greg was an American television situation comedy broadcast between 1997 and 2002 on ABC.
The premise of the show was a relationship between two characters regarded as cultural opposites. Dharma (Jenna Elfman) was raised by hippie parents, a practitioner of yoga and an adherent of Eastern spiritualities. Greg (Thomas Gibson) was an attorney from an upper class, old money family of Republicans. They married each other on their first date.
The show focused on the characters' marriage and the compromise of their different values. However, both Dharma and Greg were more moderate than their parents, often caricatures, in personality and viewpoints. Most of the episodes take place in San Francisco, as that is where all the main characters live.
The series was cancelled along with Spin City and Once and Again in 2002 due to low ratings during the 2001–2002 season and a change in target demographics.
Contents |
Main characters
Dharma
Image:Dharma & Greg Cast.jpgDharma Freedom Montgomery, née Finkelstein (Jenna Elfman) is Greg's wife and a flower child. She is extremely peppy and ditzy, but she also seems to be more compassionate and forgiving than most people. Dharma encourages Greg to seek happiness, rather than fret about practical issues like money. Due to being homeschooled by Abby and Larry, she has a limited understanding of Western culture and seems to be very credulous when it comes to trusting strangers. She is appropriately named after the concept of dharma in Indian philosophy.
According to Chuck Lorre's eleventh vanity card, he and Dottie Dartland originally conceived Dharma & Greg as "a series revolving around a woman whose personality is not a neurotic product of societal and parental conditioning, but of her own free-flowing, compassionate mind." Although, when she almost cheats on Greg - the series takes a much more dramatic turn.
Greg
Gregory "Greg" Clifford Montgomery (Thomas Gibson) is Dharma's husband. He is an upright, decent, though sometimes surprisingly open-minded, man. Greg's life was hopelessly banal before he met Dharma and married her on their first date. Since then, he has played straight man to the antics of his eccentric wife. Though his and Dharma's relationship has been rocky at times, Greg has never been shown to regret their marriage. He is shown to be an alumnus of the famous Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.
Kitty
Katherine "Kitty" Montgomery (Susan Sullivan) is Greg's snobbish mother. She highly disapproves of Dharma and is often successful in making her feel guilty.
Edward
Edward Montgomery (Mitch Ryan) is Greg's father. His philosophy for dealing with women involves remaining as uninvolved as possible. Head of Montgomery Industries (though he only keeps going to work because he can see little tugboats out the window) and at odds with Dharma's father, who calls him "Ed" and whom he calls "Finkelstein."
Abby
Abigail "Abby" Kathleen O'Neil (Mimi Kennedy) is Dharma's caring mother, who encourages her daughter and son-in-law to produce children; "Feel free to have sex anywhere." Despite openly having a grown daughter and later a son, she and Larry are not married.
Larry
Myron Lawrence "Larry" Finkelstein (Alan Rachins) is Dharma's father, who is suspicous of the government and Greg and seems to be lacking in short term memory, possible due to extensive use of marijuana.
Jane
Jane Deaux (briefly Jane Cavanaugh) (Shae D'Lyn) is Dharma's friend. She considers all men evil (more or less); over the course of the show, her hair went from black, to red, to blonde. She & Dharma met when Dharma was calling strangers to meet new friends. D'Lyn left at the end of the fourth season, though she had one "guest appearance" in season five.
Pete
Peter "Pete" James Cavanaugh (Joel Murray) is fellow lawyer of Greg and a graduate of the Bob Marley School of Law. He's a particularly bad, lazy one and was married to Jane for a time.
Other characters
- Celia (Lillian Hurst) - Kitty and Edward's Hispanic maid (appears in 16 episodes)
- Marci (Helen Greenberg) - one Dharma's friends; nausy-voiced receptionist, whose vocabulary primarily consists of the words "I'm sorry" (appears in 17 episodes; Greenberg also played a different character in the episode "Drop Dead Gorgeous")
- Marlene (Yeardley Smith) - Greg's secretary who was fired and then re-hired by Greg. (13 episodes)
- George (Floyd Westerman) - an elderly American Indian, who came to live with Dharma and Greg in the episode "Indian Summer"; he died at the end of the episode, but his ghost sometimes appears to Dharma to offer her advice (appears in 4 episodes)
- Stinky - Dharma's and Greg's dog; a long-haired mutt
- Nunzio (Bud 1997-1998,Butch 1998-1999,Twiggy {see Twiggy the Corgi} 2000-2001)- Stinky's dog, a Welsh Corgi; a gift from Dharma on Stinky's Bar Mitzvah
DVD Release
The Complete First Season will be released in Region 1 on June 13, 2006.
Trivia
- The yin and yang symbol is used as the show's emblem.
- Dharma and Greg live in a different apartment in the earlier episodes. They moved in the episode "It Takes a Village."
- The show was satirised on Family Guy.
- Both Jenna Elfman and Thomas Gibson had their respective shows Courting Alex and Criminal Minds back to back on Wednesday's on CBS that started during March 2006.
Vanity cards
At the end of each episode, a message appeared on the screen for a brief moment, so that it is readable only to those who record the program (using a VCR, for example) and pause it. These "vanity cards" were written by producer and show co-creator Chuck Lorre, and express his personal views on a variety of subjects.
Episode Guide
External links
- {{{2|{{{title|Dharma & Greg}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
- Dharma & Greg at TV.com
- Vanity card archive
- Vote for Dharma and Greg to be released on DVDde:Dharma & Greg
fr:Dharma & Greg ja:ふたりは最高! ダーマ&グレッグ fi: Dharma ja Greg sv:Dharma & Greg