Too Close to Home 

As much as I like Tyler Perry, I cannot say that this was any good. From bad acting, to seriously fake green screening this was unbelievably bad. I only give it the five stars because the idea is halfway good.

If I had a dollar for every cliché about Alabama, I saw in just the first episode alone, I'd be a rich woman. Alabamans are portrayed as trashy trailer park wh*res who have sex for drugs and money. They have boyfriends that beat them up and drive trucks. They have beefy men with long hair, and on, and on, and on. Oh they're waitresses at diners too. Evidently, there isn't a good job in Alabama and to add insult to injury, they actually call the town "Happy, Alabama". Yes, it's clichéd name is happy.

I mean, was Mr. Tyler stoned when he wrote this? TLC touted this as Tyler Perry's first scripted anything whose primary cast is white. It's very clear that Perry doesn't like white southerners. Okay yes, those people do exist, but they exist in New York, they exist in California and they exist all across this great diverse nation of ours. Why did he pick a stupid place like Happy, Alabama?

Maybe he's jabbing at Monica Lewinsky and that's fine. It's just that why does the girl who had an affair with a US President have to be from white trash? Why can't she be middle class? Or upper middle class?

All that said, there is one thing I do like. I like the generalized family problems that are closer to real life. One man has a father with dementia and he is struggling to cope. The sisters have a mother who is sick and caring for her is also difficult, but I thought the visitor of her grandson whose reaction was vomiting upon entry just another cliché.

Here is my advice to Tyler: scrap it and start over. That or fix what is broken here. I don't know how you can fix the town's name of Happy but I'm sure you can figure out a way. Clean up the garbage and show us life's difficulty without the clichés. It can be done. Really though, two guns pointing at the same guy by two very unlikely people from one scene to the next made me actually think this was supposed to be a comedy.

Please fix it Mr. Perry. I really want to like it. I do.