Loving on "Raymond" for Last Time

Raymond won't wake up in bed next to a previous sitcom wife, brother Robert and his wife won't be getting twin babies from a surrogate mom, and the whole Barone gang isn't going to end up in jail for a year.

Instead, CBS' Emmy-winning sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond will skip the high-concept series finale and end its nine-season run on May 16 (9 p.m. ET) with an episode that star Ray Romano says won't differ much from any of the show's other 209 episodes.

"The expectation is for it to have a little emotional resonance, but it won't be overly done," Emmy, SAG and People's Choice Award winner Romano said in a conference call last week. "We just want it to be funny."

The series has chronicled the lives of the Long Island Barones, a delightfully dysfunctional clan that lives too close for comfort but probably wouldn't fare as well without each other.

Most of the characters, as well as many of the episode plots, were based on relatives of Romano and series producer Phil Rosenthal. Real-life Ray, like TV Ray, has twin sons, a daughter and a brother who retired from the NYPD. And Barone mom Marie's (Doris Roberts) season one freak out about the fruit of the month club? It came straight from Rosenthal's mom, who also, like Marie, returned a personalized gift her son gave her.

It was Rosenthal who dreamed up the finale a year and a half ago. "I never thought we'd go past the seventh season," he says, "but I knew it was a good final story. So I kept it in the drawer until we were ready.

"We wanted a great episode to go out on. We want to leave it at that,'' he continues. "Anything more that we would say will tip things. And part of telling a good story is surprising people with what goes on.''

Meanwhile, Romano, in typical self-deprecating fashion, says he doesn't expect monster ratings for his swan-song episode.

"Take the Seinfeld finale's 80 million and subtract the audience for the Friends finale, 50 million, and that's our finale: 30 million viewers.''

Even so, it would mean Raymond leaves TV land on a high note. Unlike many sitcoms that stay past their comedy expiration date, Raymond will finish the season among the top 10 series in the Nielsen ratings, with an average of almost 17 million viewers each week.

(The only other sitcom among the Nielsen top 20, in fact, is CBS's Charlie Sheen vehicle Two and a Half Men, the show most likely to snag Raymond's prime-time spot next season.)

And speaking of TV land, TV Land, the network of everything classic television, will forgo its regular programming Monday night at 9 p.m. to pan in on a room filled with 210 guys named Raymond (one for each episode of the show). The TV Rays will wear shirts with the titles of episodes as they introduce themselves to the camera and remind viewers that they should actually be tuned in to the Raymond finale instead.

More proof that everyone really does love Raymond:

"It wasn't the buzz show,'' Romano says. "It wasn't the water-cooler show. It wasn't sexy and flashy and young.''

He didn't even want the show to be called Everybody Loves Raymond. "So I came up with a list: That Raymond Guy; Raymond's Tree, as in family tree; Just Raymond; and even, Um, Raymond." But the original title stuck.

It wasn't until network honcho Les Moonves moved it to Monday night the next season that the ratings doubled and Raymond became the cornerstone of the night, and of CBS's comedy lineup. The Last Laugh includes interviews with the cast and behind-the-scenes clips on the filming of the finale.

As for post-finale action, only Patricia Heaton, an Emmy winner as Raymond wife Debra, has more confirmed TV work in her future. Earlier this year, Heaton signed a deal with ABC to develop and produce a series and telemovies, along with her husband, actor David Hunt.

Romano, meanwhile, stars in the upcoming New Line big-screen comedy Grilled with fellow CBS-er Kevin James, and will lend his voice to the Ice Age animated sequel later this year. Brad Garrett, aka Robert, seemed a shoo-in for a Raymond spinoff series earlier this year, but sources say he's now more likely to sign a deal to develop a new comedy series for HBO. Both comedians will also continue to take their stand-up acts on the road.

Also on the road: Rosenthal (whose wife, Monica Horan, stars as Robert's wife, Amy) and his fellow Raymond scribes are touring with an audience Q&A/clipfest performance called "Inside the Writers Room of Everybody Loves Raymond." (For more info, check out the Web site, www.insidethewritersroom.com.)

As for the Raymond 'rents, Roberts will star in the 2006 Adam Sandler comedy Nana's Boy, while Barone pop Peter Boyle, a former monk (holy crap!) and buddy of John Lennon, is looking for a new series.

The entire cast will gather to watch the finale in New York, Romano told 60 Minutes interviewer Steve Kroft, and he expects, like he did at the taping of the last show, to shed a few tears.

"But that was an underwear problem," jokes Romano. "It was a very emotional time. And it got to me. It got to me a little bit. I broke down. And my father was there. So now he thinks I'm gay."