''Imaginary Mary'' is an American live-action/animated

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama ...

sitcom A sitcom, a Portmanteau, portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troup ...

television series created by Adam F. Goldberg, David Guarascio and Patrick Osborne that aired on ABC from March 29 to May 30, 2017. The series is executive produced by the creators and was greenlighted to series order on May 12, 2016. A first-look-trailer was released on the same day. ABC reduced the number of episodes from thirteen to nine on September 28, 2016. On May 11, 2017, the series was cancelled after one season.

Plot

The series follows Alice when an imaginary

puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. The puppeteer uses movements of their hands, arms, or control devices such as rods ...

being from her childhood, named Mary, reappears when she is now a single public relations executive falling in love with a single father of three children. Mary hopes to guide (or misguide) her.

Cast

Jenna Elfman Jennifer Mary Elfman (née Butala, born 1971) is an American actress. She is best known for her leading role as Dharma on the ABC sitcom '' Dharma & Greg'' (1997–2002), for which she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Telev ...

as Alice * Stephen Schneider as Ben Cooper, Alice’s love interest * Nicholas Coombe as Andy Cooper, Ben's son * Matreya Scarrwener as Dora Cooper, Ben's daughter * Erica Tremblay as Bunny Cooper, Ben's daughter *

Rachel Dratch Rachel Susan Dratch (born February 22, 1966) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. After she graduated from Dartmouth College she moved to Chicago to study improvisational theatre at The Second City and ImprovOlympic. Her breakthrough r ...

as the voice of Mary

Production

The series was first announced in 2015 as ''Imaginary Friend'' which was then changed to ''Imaginary Gary''. In the original pilot, the main characters were both men and the love interest was a single mom. When the series went into development, the genders of the characters were flipped. Elfman filmed her scenes first with a puppet in order for the animators to have a reference point, and then in a later take without anything to show what she was talking to. Dratch did her voice work separately in New York with the scenes already filmed. She said at the TCA press tour, "I have the freedom to go crazy." In September 2016, it was reported that the show's crew would make changes with the animation for the character, Mary, after it received a poor reception from ABC. ABC then reduced the original thirteen-episode order for the first season to nine episodes in order to allow the show's crew to make changes with the animation.

Episodes

Reception

Critical response

The series received a generally negative response from critics. On review aggregator site

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, ''Imaginary Mary'' has a metascore of 39 out of 100 based on 13 critics signifying "generally unfavorable reviews". On another review aggregator site

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the show has a 27% approval rating, based on 22 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's critical consensus: "''Imaginary Mary'' appealing cast is canceled out by uninspired material and a ridiculous premise whose deficiencies are compounded by an unfunny, ill-advised CGI creature."

Ratings

References

External links

* *
Imaginary Mary
at

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{{Happy Madison Productions American Broadcasting Company original programming 2010s American single-camera sitcoms 2017 American television series debuts 2017 American television series endings American fantasy television series American television shows featuring puppetry American television series with live action and animation English-language television shows Television series about dysfunctional families Television series by ABC Studios Television series by Happy Madison Productions Television series by Sony Pictures Television Television shows set in Chicago Television shows filmed in British Columbia