quality:corruption
Production

Each episode was created in a workweek that consisted of actors reading through and rehearsing the script on Monday, actors rehearsing and the writers tweaking the script on Tuesday, CBS running through what the actors rehearsed on Wednesday, camera blocking on Thursday, and filming on Friday. A typical writing session started with each of the writers discussing their lives, which served as the basis for episode scripts; as Rosenthal summarized the process, "talking, talking, talking and then all of a sudden, that's a story." Will MacKenzie, who directed for Everybody Loves Raymond on the second, third, and fourth seasons, recalled the writers being so efficient that thirteen episode scripts were completed by the time a season began airing. When shooting episodes, Rosenthal was very stern about the actors sticking to the script and avoiding ad libing, although "alternative" lines were put in the script for some episodes.