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Critic Reviews
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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.
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 :)