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"Dr. Phil" (2002) More at IMDbPro »

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19 comments in total

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13 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
good show, 5 August 2003
Author: colinwhitefan

I think Dr. Phil gets a bad rap because he came from Oprah's show, but he is actually a good host. I like Dr. Phil's style and sense of humor with his guests. Dr. Phil is a good talk show, he helps all kinds of people with their problems and you can take a lot from it.

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14 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Forget Survivor and Big Brother, Dr. Phil is the 'real' reality TV show that I like!, 28 December 2004
Author: Old Joe from Hamilton, Australia

This piece I am writing is not a review, but more a thank you to a person who I believe right now is one of the most influential personalities on TV in the world. The man I am referring to is arrogant, in your face and straight to the point. He is also very caring, compassionate, giving and understanding. His name is Dr. Phil McGraw or simply 'Dr. Phil' as he is known in the TV world. He is a very clever man, with a great way of being able to sum up any given situation. Phil also shows that his experience as a clinical psychologist is very invaluable.

Dr. Phil C. McGraw is a renowned life strategist and best-selling author, formerly on the 'Oprah' show. He now hosts his own daily program that is a "stop talking and do something show." Covering a full range of topics from news headlines to coping with life's challenges - Dr. Phil offers viewers a positive, transformational, and entertaining experience like nothing else on television.

I am guilty of initially thinking that Dr. Phil was just another bald Doctor on TV who is raving on about the usual old issues. Well I was totally wrong. Sure he might be talking about these old issues, but Phil somehow has a different angle to present his opinion on a certain issue. Some of his shows are so fascinating that they are tantalizing for me and I am sure the thousands of viewers he has.

Another good point that Phil does have for the show is that he creates some wonderful series for his programs that are not only good viewing, but crucial for many people's well being and lives. Things like 'Parenting 101', 'The ultimate weight loss challenge', 'Family in crisis'/'Family divided' and just recently 'relationship rescue retreat' have all been great. All of these segments are terrific, give good insights, and I continue to wait with anticipation for the next new segment he comes up with.

The show itself has many good parts to it, besides the stories and the Doc. Robyn McGraw (Phil's beautiful wife), Jay and Jordan (his two sons) are a part of his shows from time to time. In fact, Robyn is at every show, and her and Phil walking of set together at the end of every show is great. I also think that the crew Phil has assembled are incredible for the work that they do. While the show's musical theme is something that at times I cannot get out of my head, it is just great.

I feel that in these times, psychology, psychiatry and counselling are dismissed by many people as being unimportant and very much a waste of time. Well I totally disagree with that opinion and say that those people should watch Dr. Phil to see that they are wrong and that those areas are all important in the world we live in. In fact I have been fighting a battle of my own over the past few years, in relation to mental illness, had many highs and lows and with the help of these areas have almost beaten my illness. Trust me, it has been a challenge too! Dr. Phil is not everyone's cup of tea, I understand that, but I think he is the best man on international TV, and although he is predominantly targeting American audiences, Phil is touching many people around the world, and that includes my country, Australia. Dr Phil from the bottom of this Aussie's heart, thank you so much, keep up the incredible and more importantly inspirational work going that you do.

Your friend Old Joe

(bassybaby@ozemail.com.au)

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
If every one used their common sense there would be no need for this show, 19 September 2006

Author: mulhollandman from Ireland

Dr. Phil is another show in a long procession of talk's shows that set out to provide assistance in their private lives. The difference that separates Dr. Phil from the others is that Dr. Phil McGraw is genuine in his concern for his guests and he is more than willing to provide the answers and solutions to thee guests private lives but only on the grounds that the guests are willing to work not for him but there selves. This approach to his work guarantees that his guests are 100 percent genuine in solving their private problems and not just being another form of white trash entertainment that Jerry Springer presented in the 90's.

I am not one to watch these kinds of talk shows because of the idiots that are inclined to be on them and the problems that these idiots bring on themselves by dating serial adulterers or living with their interfering mothers. With Dr. Phil you get the opposite of the spectrum. You get good decent everyday people whose private problems might seem minor from an outsider's point of view. But with the aid of verbal description and hidden cameras we discover examples of sleep terrors that are having a profound affect on the individual suffering on them and how he or she can become a physical night time threat to the health of his or her loved ones. Dr. Phil's problem solving technique is very straightforward. He uses a tough love approach where he insists on the guest using their common sense to solve their problems. This leads to often-humorous quips from Dr. Phil regarding the pettiness of the couple's situations. In the areas of substance dependency Dr. Phil is more than willing to use all his powers with seeking the best professional help available to help his guests.

With a show like Dr. Phil's you can expect that you will be completely enthralled by some case matters or totally bored by others. That is one of my main three faults with this show. My second fault is that Dr. Phil pretends he cares but not before he markets his latest book. Every show produces another new book that relates to that days subject matter. Either Dr. Phil publishes a new book every week or he wants to clear his shelves of the books that did not sell before 2002 and the first broadcasts of his show. Finally there is my biggest hate and that is his ever-present wife Robin. Dr. Phil gives this woman too much credit in his shows which makes me ask the question if she is so bloody inspirational and genuine and he wants to promote couples working together why isn't the show called the Dr. Phil and Robin McGraw show.

Despite these problems I do find the show to be very interesting. One of my favorite shows was the episode on people who think they are cursed. This featured a lady who at a young age was exorcised by her father who was a Pentecostal minister. In the intervening years that followed this lady had had a run of bad luck. She believed that during the exorcism she was possessed by a demons and these demons were responsible for many tragic events in her life. When I was watching this I felt bad for this lady as it was very obvious that her childhood innocence had been shattered by her parents spiritual leanings. It made me feel that although I think at times life is bad but for others it's a lot worse and the worst part is that a show like Dr. Phil has to remind me of this I myself automatically acknowledge it. What's more this show teaches me that what might seem to be a huge problem can be simply solved by using common sense at that organ that god gave me called a brain.

I often see Dr. Phil as the cool uncle you would go to if you had problems and his attitude would be comforting. This is cool as I personally would not want him as a dad. The show is really good at times it can be quite boring but that depends on the problems that you the audience can relate to on a personal basis. It is however definitely the best of these kind of shows that offer help to troubled people. 6 out of 10.

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18 out of 34 people found the following comment useful :-
Why is Dr. Phil so anti-men? Is he a puppet for the feminist culture?, 2 May 2006
Author: WWu777 from United States

On the hit show Dr. Phil, popular with US women but disliked by men, the woman's side is always taken. The bias is unmistakable, and understandable since their target audience is predominantly feminist females. But even worse, for some reason, they always bring on stupid men rather than intelligent ones, to use as punching bags for Dr. Phil and his feminist politically correct audience. For instance, when Dr. Phil does relationship counseling for couples, he usually lectures the male partner on what he's doing wrong, who in turn is incapable of defending himself. Instead, the stupid male guinea pig can only say regarding his alleged insensitive behavior "That's just the way I am. I can't help it." which provides a perfect target for Dr. Phil's preaching to the choir about how men "just don't get it". Obviously the show is screened and rigged this way to appease its female audience. For instance, they would never bring on someone like me who might out-debate Dr. Phil and make him look bad. This all perpetuates the feminist stereotype that men are stupid and wrong, and need to be educated, while women are innocent victims who can do no wrong.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Give this Man, his Emmy!, 10 September 2007

Author: Sylvia Marciniak (sylviastel@aol.com) from United States

Dr. Phil McGraw may not be one of my favorite talk show hosts but I do respect him as a serious psychologist who does his best to help his guests and his audience as well. Regardless of how you feel about his mentor, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Phil has come into his own with this show. He tries to reason and help families dealing with relationships and issues about trust and boundaries. Sometimes, I don't think we set our boundaries or think about trusting our family members. We do relate because we have all had relative abuse our trust and cross the boundaries. Some of his shows have in-laws in battle which can seem fiercer than actual war battles. Dr. Phil spends an hour giving us the television therapy we need in our lives if we choose to watch him. If not, watch something else instead but please, he deserves an Emmy for always performing consistently.

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8 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Good old down-home Texas talk!, 12 December 2004
Author: TxMike from Houston, Tx, USA, Earth

"The Dr. Phil" show is very popular down here in Texas, partly because Dr. Phil is a genuine Texan. He is on network TV every weekday afternoon, right before the news. I look at him and see an example of "being in the right place at the right time." Long a regular on the 'Oprah Winfrey Show', when the networks finally realized his overwhelming popularity, he was given his own show. He is big and imposing at over 6 feet, and not exactly skinny. He is a degreed psychologist, and what he has to say makes sense. But not any more sense than maybe 5,000 or 10,000 others like across the nation. But he has the same ingredient that has made Emeril Lagasse a hit with his own cooking show, that spark which allows him to connect with the audience. I like Dr. Phil, what he has to say makes sense, but I don't know if anything has been done to measure its success. Sometimes I lay awake at night, hearing his voice in my mind, in that thick, Texas drawl, "No wonder you're fat, you eat all day long. You just have to look at yourself in a mirror, and decide to quit eating those twinkies!"

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3 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
reality vs fantasy, 15 January 2005
Author: kerrikp

Dr. Phil has arrived on our TV sets after spending years proving himself in private, professional practice. Oprah Winfrey, who is losing her sheen as a host, but still knows how to make savvy business decisions, put him on the air because she saw something. I would like to think it is the same thing I see - he doesn't let his guests, or America, get away with CONTINUING to fool themselves. THAT is what's behind the "And how's that working for you?" It's his way of calling B.S. He would prefer us all and probably rightly expects that we all should get real. I think the people who don't like him or don't get him either need or want to continue living in their fantasy world.

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7 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
really embarrassing, 3 April 2003
Author: renaldo and clara

This show stirs up a lot of negative emotions within me for Dr. Phil,

but mostly its embarrassment in general. I am embarrassed for

adults that need to come on his show and listen to him load spout

stuff that is already common knowledge. Embarrassed at myself

for flipping through the channels and stopping on him for just a

few minutes to give him the time of day. What a big mistake.

Can't people just talk things out without having this mentally-challenged pretentious, "doctor" telling them what's ok?

The saddest thing of all is it seems like most of his guests are

extremely well-off, intelligent people who can work their own

problems out through time. I sincerely wish they wouldn't waste

their time on his show. I even feel like I'm wasting my time now,

but I had to balance out the gushing reviews for this man.

If you're in a really good mood and you feel like diminishing it,

watch Dr. Phil. He's useless, pretentious, and boring. "Dr. Drew"

would be a much better show.

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8 out of 17 people found the following comment useful :-
Dr. Pill, 10 January 2003
Author: rrichr from Berkeley CA

Why are we hated by so many? Well. Let's start with the fact that, despite our unmatched wealth and power, we are, for the most part, clueless. By this I do not mean that we lack intelligence or information. It's just that in our headlong pursuit of whatever, we have almost completely forgotten how to authentically embody our own innate humanity. Not only do we do not know what this really means but, quite possibly, we may no longer care. People around the globe, many of whom have nothing else going for them but their humanity, cannot be blamed for feeling cranky when they see us squandering our own, trading it in for the hyper-acquisitive, relentlessly-territorial role-playing and posing that, increasingly, passes for life in America. To confirm this, don't tune into outpatient-fests like Jerry Springer. Instead, mosey on over to Dr. Phil's place. There, you can see how the 'real' Americans, the dishwasher-safe people who hire and fire us, handle their stuff. Is it just me, or could most of these folks not work their way out from under a wet Kleenex unless they were motivated by unexpensed stock options? There's no doubt that Dr. McGraw, with his FDNY style and ready Texas-isms, is an appealing and intelligent fellow. I mean, he has a Ph.D. and as everyone knows, you don't question the high-end paper. But, from another azimuth, the Doc is becoming the jocular Billy Graham for a moribund, self-congratulatory value system that is in absolutely dire need of a reboot. Perceived from the midst of screaming glare of mainstream American life, such an attitude might sound like the sourest of grapes, but if you have the resolve to step outside the noise for a while and keep your eyes open, and you'll see precisely how helpless, how paralyzed, how totally bought, and sold, we have become. In the midst of the drama, the Doctor reminds us to 'Get Real'. But what does that really mean? Well, it can mean almost anything. That's the beauty of such a platitude. To the Doc it largely means to do what he tells you to do and the pain will stop, at least for a while. As we culturally spiral down to God knows what outcome, Dr. Phil urges us to be nice about it all, to be adults, not to screw over our loved ones, not be afraid to tell our teenagers that they periodically behave like idiots. Good advice, but why doesn't the pain go away? Here's one reason: America was founded on the principle of enlightened self-interest but over time that concept has devolved into plain selfishness, at any cost, and we are driving ourselves insane trying to rationalize the choices we are coerced into making, exhausted from trying to be comfortable in an artificial, emotionally-desiccated psychological landscape. Dr. Phil isn't evil. Actually, he seems like a nice guy and I'm sure he means well. But behind the academic façade, he's just as clueless as everyone else. But his cluelessness is credentialed and heavily-reinforced by the fact that he's making a ton of money by holding his particular pose. He operates on a dubious and equally well-reinforced premise: that when things go wrong, WE are always the culprits; that when things don't work it's US that are not working hard enough. But there's never the slightest mention that what we are working FOR may be problematic. Take a look around and consider waking up. We are all dancing to a tune played by just a relative few, very powerful individuals who stand to lose big-time if we stop our mindless consumption and destruction. Do you think the film, The Matrix, is just fantasy? I assure you it's not. But it is metaphor. The truth, like magma, is always seeking the surface and often gets there in spite of us. The Doctor and his ilk have hijacked the authentic self-awareness from which we have sheepishly abdicated. He's willing to sell it back to us, but only after he has placed his complex condom over it; safe sex, safer thinking. Merely reupholstering our antique, threadbare inner furniture is not going to get the job done. A revolution of consciousness is called for at this juncture. We must phase out our fundamentally juvenile relationship with existence and understand that our 'way of life' is merely one particular view from one particular hilltop. The Dr. Phils of the world want us to follow them submissively back into the very orientation that we need to seriously question if we want to survive as a race. But it's family values, right? Sure, but the family is devo too, obviously among those to whom the Good Doctor ministers. What was once a place where we were basically prepared for life is becoming a stressed-out, insular, mindlessly-competitive, goal-obsessed guild of apprentices to the family name, as potentially fertile a breeding ground for tyranny and worse as it once was for love and support; turning out reactionary, tunnel-visioned kids who slavishly pass the whole mess on to the next generation, or go wack when confronted with the shrinking collection of acceptable futures currently available. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing but a little understanding is even more dangerous. Understanding is to knowledge like plutonium is to uranium, a higher order of fissionability. Look into your own hearts. Don't fear what you may see. Much of it is not really you. It's just what you've dutifully acquired. Much of what we need to know, and understand, is inside us but we must hold our breath and dive more deeply into ourselves than we're accustomed to diving in order to get beneath the accumulated surface scum. Life is more than just a career opportunity. Don't be afraid to provide your own answers to your own questions, to fashion your own sustainable and humane solutions to your own individual problems. You can do it. You have all the tools. It's simply a matter of using them.

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1 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
There is a real stigma to being a daytime sensation, 31 January 2004
Author: frog princess

And there's a stigma to being identified as someone who watches them. Ignore the fact that he's become a kind of pop guru, and ignore the kind of dirisive remarks made by people whose self esteem requires they categorically scorn all things aimed at the class of individuals who would be watching TV at 10:00 on a weekday morning.

A lot of what Dr. Phil says is good common sense. Even if he's saying things people already know, they often need to be told them anyway. Again and again. rrichr's review was so much drivel. Dr. Phil DOES urge people to reassess their goals, to determine what it is they want to accomplish, whether what they want is a realistic thing to strive for, and whether it will ultimately improve their lives and the lives of those around them. He helps people look for the lies that are being dished to them by the media.

I don't agree with all the advise he has given everyone by a long shot, but overall he has done more good than bad. And his Ultimate Weight Loss shows have inspired so many dangerously overweight people to start a healthy lifestyle, I don't begrudge him his millions.

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