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"Raymond" Finale Bugged
The show can't be over until the petite lady yells.
That's the dilemma for CBS' hit sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, which twice postponed shooting its swan song in recent days after Patricia Heaton and other members of the cast fell ill.
Heaton, who plays Ray's forceful wife, Debra, lost her voice.
"We need her to yell at me, you know that," Ray Romano told Entertainment Tonight over the weekend. The final taping, already delayed on Friday by Heaton's malaise, was again postponed Sunday because the leading lady wasn't fully recovered, and Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle, who play Ray's pesky parents, Marie and Frank, were by then also under the weather.
"We didn't want to compromise the finale. We need everyone to be 100 percent," Romano said. A network spokesperson said Monday that producers hope everybody will be healthy enough to tape the farewell half-hour, the 210th in the series' nine-year run, this Saturday. The finale is scheduled to air May 16 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.
"I don't know if it's psychosomatic, or people just don't wanna leave," Romano quipped to ET about the cast, several of whom have staged what appeared to be a few opportunistic sickouts in efforts to up their pay and share of the profits.
In 2003, after Romano got a whopping pay raise, Heaton suddenly had headaches, Roberts a bad knee and Boyle an allergy to pain medicine. The various ailments kept them from the set for various amounts of time. However, Brad Garrett, who plays Ray's big doofus brother, Robert, openly said his pain was in his wallet, and that he wouldn't show up until his share of the pie was increased. The cast eventually struck a new deal, and the producers--Romano, show creator Phil Rosenthal, CBS, Worldwide Pants and HBO--agreed to share bigger syndication profits with everybody.
The stars of the 12-time Emmy-winning series gathered amicably, if rather wistfully, last Tuesday at a Los Angeles hotel to share their goodbye feelings in front of a roomful of the nation's television critics.
Romano revealed that Heaton, who has twice been Emmy'd for Outstanding Lead Actress in Comedy Series, "couldn't stop crying," when they started reading the script for the final episode.
"I've been gabbing about how I'm ready to leave and I'm not an emotional person and I don't like this sappy stuff...I have not stopped saying how I'm going to shut down and not respond until after the show is over. And then the table-read...," said Heaton, mimicking sounds of weeping. "Then the first scenes we had to rehearse were sort of emotional scenes and I just...[more faux wailing] and to the great credit of the cast here, they ignored it."
"I would like to say that I believe in order to survive in life, you have to accept loss," interjected Roberts, remarking that the end of the show will be "a loss" for them all.
"I have that ability because I lost my hair at a very young age," said Boyle (whose signature "Holy Crap!" exclamation was uttered 359 times during the series, for those keeping count at home).
Rosenthal is "not telling" whether the finale, when it eventually gets filmed, will have the Barone brood cracking wise or getting all sentimental.
CBS, meanwhile, is milking the Raymond farewell. The network will run viewers' five favorite episodes as determined by Internet voting on Mondays from Feb. 28 through Mar. 28. And the May 16 finale will be preceded by a one-hour retrospective special.
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