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Critic Reviews
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I'd rather just watch Grammer and Heaton trade barbs in the newsroom. [21 Sep 2007, p.71]
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There's no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to new TV series, but Back to You is as close as it gets.
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Fox's Back to You is back to TV comedy basics: multiple cameras, live audiences but, mostly, laughs.
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Grammer and Heaton slip easily into characters who won't be easily mistaken for Frasier Crane or Debra Barone, the writing's professional, the supporting cast dependable (and in the case of Fred Willard, another "Raymond" veteran, dependably hilarious).
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This is one of those comedies in which the actors’ and writers’ skills are so sharp that the whole enterprise feels effortless.
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You just can't get through two minutes of Back to You without a belly laugh.
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Back to You doesn't have a mandate to be inventive--to try new comedic beats or to attempt daring flights of absurdity. It just needs to be uninventive in a snappy way, a feat readily accomplished.
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Still, even when Back is faltering, you flash back to the skill of its stars and to moments when the show succeeds in making you laugh out loud.
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The snap, crackle and pop of witty dialogue well delivered. That is the consistently amusing, escapist pleasure of Back to You.
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What really makes the opening episode work, though, is the chemistry between Grammer--as Chuck Darling, an egotistical newsman who has returned to Pittsburgh after his career stalled--and Heaton as his uptight longtime co-anchor, Kelly Carr, who isn't thrilled by his return.
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What Back to You lacks in bite, it compensates for with chemistry and pure talent. The center of it all is the relationship between Chuck and Kelly, and Mr. Grammer and Ms. Heaton work together like they have been doing it all their lives.
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Together Mr. Grammer and Ms. Heaton lift Back to You, a comedy that begins tonight on Fox, into a surprisingly amusing half-hour.
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Grammer and Heaton spar like old hands, but the punches (and punchlines) are so consistently telegraphed, the series seldom rises above the mundane.
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Absolutely nothing about it is original or seeks to transform the half-hour genre. Still, the fact that it is executed by sure-footed comedy veterans more than makes up for the sin of familiarity.
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The pilot's plot leads them in a direction where "this just in" becomes an obvious sexual metaphor--some of it is funny, but there's just too much.
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So many parts of the pilot, though, seem dumbed down or sacrificing character for punch lines, you wonder why things weren't retooled in time for launch.
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Three sitcom veterans can elevate comfortable mediocrity only so high. There's probably not one setup, premise or joke that you haven't seen before (or will see coming) in the entirety of your sitcom-watching life.
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Yes, they're wicked wacky, this group, but they also seem to have been torn from the pages of the Sitcom Writer's Handbook, their status as foils and fools having been measured out in carefully calculated amounts, the final goal appearing to be not so much nonstop hilarity as the reassuring guarantee of No Surprises.
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Whenever the action drifts away from Heaton or Grammer, the show starts to feel slack.
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You have to admire Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton for holding up their end of the bargain, even if the material in their show, Back to You, is such a drop from "Frasier" and "Everybody Loves Raymond"
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There's just too much shtick and not enough personality, especially when the stars' previous hits found their funny in relatable human behavior.
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This comedy is painfully broad, not to mention unimaginative and derivative of every newsroom sitcom from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to "LateLine" to "NewsRadio" to "Less Than Perfect."
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None of those jokes serve any purpose except to be jokes, and they suffer for the fact that real people don't talk, think or act this way.
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Workplace comedies just bore me.
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After twenty years of stalwart service, Kelsey Grammer should be allowed back on television whenever he likes. But on a show like this, why would he want to be?
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Back to You is no brains.
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Back to You stinks, shames the sitcom form, is written and directed with smelly gusto, and is not original, funny or redemptive by any universal standards known to science, creation or TV executives.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 19 out of 42
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Mixed: 5 out of 42
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Negative: 18 out of 42
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DiegoMar 13, 2009
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BigJMay 4, 2008Very funny show. Much better now than at the beginning of the series
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ThomasH.Feb 12, 2008Excellent, fresh, and imaginative. This show has definate potential. Good to see Kelsey Grammer back on the box :)