LAST year, at right about this time, Fox teamed up sitcom stalwarts Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton in a very tired, very conventional sitcom called “Back To You.” It was so tired nobody even noticed when it got the ax.
This year, ABC is trying almost the same thing, by putting the same two in their own sitcoms, again — but instead of joining forces, their shows are running back-to-back beginning tonight.
Bottom line? One show works better than expected, while the other is much worse than seems possible.
Grammer’s show, “Hank,” is one of the worst new (or old) comedies of this or many other seasons. Grammer, yet again, plays the done-to-death stuffed-shirt character he’s been playing since “Cheers.” Geez, man, give it a rest. Even William Shatner stopped being Captain Kirk long enough to become Denny Crane.
Hank is a guy who finds himself out of work as the CEO of a chain of sporting goods stores, which means he has to move the family from New York back to the old hometown (yes, this one again!).
He and unstuffy wife Tilly (yes, Tilly), played by Melinda McGraw, and their two stereotypical sitcom children — moody teen Maddie (Jordan Hinson) and the prerequisite geeky little Henry (Nathan Gamble), who is so annoying you’ll want to blow up the flat screen — move to small town USA. Brutal.
Since I had to down two Red Bulls to get through the 22 minutes of torturously unfunny dialogue, I was sure I’d need dangerous drugs to sit through Patricia Heaton’s “The Middle.”
Fear and fatigue quickly turned to laughter, despite the fact that “The Middle,” set in Indiana, follows another conventional formula. Heaton plays Frankie, a mother who sells used cars and is married to the unemotional Mike (Neil Flynn). Together, they raise their three, very unexceptional misfit kids.
There’s Sue (Eden Sher), a 13-year-old with terrible braces who tries out for everything but isn’t good enough at anything to ever get picked. Axl (Charlie McDermott) is a 15-year-old, not particularly gifted athlete who walks around in his underwear. And there’s little Brick (Atticus Shaffer), a grade school geek who repeats things in a whisper and is generally disliked by everyone in his class, including his teacher. They are all funny and well-cast.
Even though Heaton is also reverting to type with the harried, jaded housewife bit, she somehow manages to get some freshness into the old girl, while Grammer’s 90th go-round as the pretentious windbag is out of air and will probably sink faster than the Hindenburg.