Back To You: "Pilot"
(Premieres on Fox tonight, 8pm ET / 7pm CT)
The traditional three-camera/filmed-before-a-live-audience sitcom has died more false deaths than Dracula but it's undeniably in the middle of a moment where only the innovative and the shameless survive. (For a study in contrasts look no further than CBS on Monday where the inventive How I Met Your Mother airs next to the leering Two And A Half Men>) The new Fox sitcom Back To You isn't particularly innovative and it's only occasionally shameless. It's a sitcom in the old mold, created, steered, and staffed by professionals. And, unfortunately, it's more craft than passion so far.
Creators Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd (not the actor) have a combined pedigree that includes The Golden Girls, The Larry Sanders Show, Wings and Frasier. They worked together on the latter two and apparently the experience was pleasant enough to draw in Frasier star Kelsey Grammer and frequent Frasier director James Burrows, whose sitcom career stretches back to the golden days of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Also on board: Patricia Heaton, late of Everybody Loves Raymond, the show most often referenced as the last example of the great, traditional sitcom. (To be honest, I can count on one hand the number of episodes I've seen but it always seemed sturdy to me.)
Based around a Pittsburgh station's local newscast, Back To You rather obviously takes Mary Tyler Moore as its model. (But it should be noted that, as a former correspondent in Madison, Wisconsin, Levitan comes by his small-market TV credentials honestly.) The pilot opens with a flashback to 1996 (that looks more like 1976), showing Grammer preparing to leave for a larger market as co-anchor Heaton and sportscaster Fred Willard sit by his side. We flash-forward 10 years and witness Grammer having an accidental on-air meltdown after a bimbo-ish correspondent blows her cue. The meltdown that lands him back in Pittsburgh where he reunites with Heaton and we learn they had a one-night-stand on the night of his departure.
We also meet the rest of the gang, none of whom seem poised to be the sort of breakout character that gives a sitcom a deeper bench than its stars. Josh Gad plays an overweight nerd who's just like every other overweight nerd you've ever seen. Ty Burrell plays a wannabe anchor whose character is never funnier than his unpronounceable last name ("Crezyzewski"). And as a busty, scantily clad weather forecaster, Ayda Field seems to have stepped in from some Latina variation on Spike Lee's Bamboozled.