Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing City Guys, which ran on NBC from 1997 to 2001.  Almost the entire show is currently streaming on YouTube!

Seriously, how have we not reached the final episode yet?

Episode 5.19 “Model Behavior”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 17th, 2001)

I have to admit that, with each week, it gets harder and harder for me to watch and review this stupid show.  I’m currently on the final season and there’s only a few more episodes left to go but, every Thursday, I literally have to force myself to sit through whatever episodes are available on YouTube.  City Guys was never a particularly original show to begin with.  I mean, the only thing that distinguishes it from every other show that Peter Engel produced for NBC was that the cast was a bit more diverse than usual.  But, by the fifth season, it was obvious that the writers were out of ideas and the cast was ready to move on.  I’m at the point that, whenever I hear Al call his ex-girlfriend “Dawny Dawn,” I want to throw something across the room.  Whenever Ms. Noble starts to talk down to her students, I want to scream.  Whenever Chris say something dorky or Jamal asks someone to “Help a brother out,” I silently groan.  It’s all so predictable that I feel like I could probably just guess what happened in each episode and be correct.

As for this episode, Jamal has a girlfriend!  Now, because so much of Season 5 is not streaming online, I don’t know if this episode is the first time that we’ve seen Rosie (Jenna Watson) but apparently, she and Jamal are very much an established couple.  Rosie gets an opportunity to be a model and Jamal throws a fit because he doesn’t want other guys checking out his girlfriend, even though Jamal was earlier doing the same thing to Rosie’s fellow models.  When Rosie calls him out on it, Jamal learns an important lessons about double standards.  Personally, I’m amazed that a successful model like Rosie would waste her time with someone who can barely handle running the cash register at the Manhattan Diner.

Meanwhile, Dawn is organizing a week-long trip to Florida and one of the students who was meant to be a part of the group has to drop out after she gets mono.  Ms. Noble tells Dawn that it’s up to her to select who will be the replacement.  Al and L-Train suck up to Dawn and try to convince her to take them to Florida.  Dawn picks some guy named Jason instead and Ms. Noble gives Al and L-Train a week of detention.  In the past, this is the type of B-plot that would have been saved by the comic timing of Steven Daniel but, at this point, I’m even tired of L-Train.  To be honest, I don’t know why Dawn didn’t just pick her best friend Cassidy.

This episode just felt tired.  The Florida trip made no sense whatsoever while the model storyline just made me think about how much better California Dreams would have handled the whole thing.  I’ve been reviewing City Guys for nearly a year now and I’m definitely ready to move on.

Episode 5.20 “Almost Fatal”

(Dir by Frank Bonner, originally aired on November 17th, 2001)

Here’s the plot description for Wikipedia:

After Chris, Jamal, and El-Train survive a car crash, they start going through some changes as they now view life in a whole new perspective. The three friends begin live to their lives on the edge by doing certain activities to the extreme.

This is one of the many season 5 episodes that is not currently streaming anywhere.  That’s kind of a shame because the plot description makes it sound like this episode could have been interesting or, at the very least, memorably bad.  That said, if I had to guess, I’d say that this was probably just another episode where everyone spent too much time hanging out on the roof and getting a stern talking to from Ms. Noble.

Next week, I’ll be more another episode closer to being done with this show!