That's Life (1998 TV series)

This article is about the 1998 ABC television series. For other uses, see That's Life (disambiguation).

That's Life is an American television sitcom that premiered March 10, 1998, on ABC. The series is about a blue-collar family living in Queens. It was cancelled by ABC after only a little more than a month,^[1] airing its final episode on April 7, 1998, leaving one episode unaired.

That's Life
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Eric Gilliland Brian Burns
Directed by	Michael Lembeck Robin Bextor
Starring	Gerry Red Wilson Kellie Overbey Nadia Dajani Ron Livingston Pauley Perrette
Composers	Mark McAdam Jonathan Wolff Paul Buckley
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producers	Eric Gilliland Sid Youngers
Producer	Lisa Albert
Production companies	Eric Gilliland Productions 20th Century Fox Television
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	March 10 (1998-03-10) – April 14, 1998 (1998-04-14)

Summary

Mike is head of the meat department at the supermarket. He has been married to Patty for ten years, and the two live in their own duplex in Queens. Patty's sister Catherine and her son Kieran move into the apartment above Mike and Patty. Lisa is Patty's college-aged sister, and Mitch is Mike's best friend.^[2]

Cast

• Gerry Red Wilson as Mike
• Kellie Overbey as Patty
• Nadia Dajani as Catherine
• Ron Livingston as Mitch
• Pauley Perrette as Lisa
• Michael Charles Roman as Kieran

Episodes

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date	Prod. code
1	"The First One"	Michael Lembeck	Story by : Brian Burns & Eric Gilliland Teleplay by : Eric Gilliland	March 10, 1998 (1998-03-10)	1ABK01
2	"The Second One, Believe It or Not"	Gordon Hunt	Pat Bullard & Rich Kaplan	March 17, 1998 (1998-03-17)	1ABK03
3	"Actually, the Third One"	Unknown	Norma Vela & Lisa Albert	March 24, 1998 (1998-03-24)	1ABK02
4	"94 to Syndication"	Unknown	Janet Leahy & Lisa Albert & Pat Bullard & Rich Kaplan	March 31, 1998 (1998-03-31)	1ABK06
5	"The Easter Story"	Michael Lembeck	Eric Gilliland	April 7, 1998 (1998-04-07)	1ABK04
6	"The Sixth One to Air"	Unknown	Sid Youngers & Norma Vela & Stacie Lipp & Mark McAdam	April 14, 1998 (1998-04-14)	1ABK05

Reception

Rick Lyman of The New York Times called the series "an affable car wreck of a sitcom".^[3] Ray Richmond of Variety said that it is "an uncomfortably crude" series that "looks to be a jarringly insular, Hollywood vision of how the gentiles must live".^[2] Tom Shales of The Washington Post panned the show, describing it as a "pathetic attempt by ABC to do a blue-collar sitcom in the tradition of 'Roseanne'. . . . It's not imitated, of course, in ways that matter or in terms of quality and credibility."^[4] In response to the Easter episode, which aired on April 7, 1998, the series was denounced by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights as "the most anti-Catholic television show ever".^[5]