back to you

There aren't many people who won't be able to relate to Gary, the would-be anchorman stuck in an inferior reporter position, and his exasperation at the non-stop promos celebrating anchorman Chuck Darling's return to local television because they've all been bombarded with Fox's desperate promos for Back to You whose producers think they've given re-birth to the sitcom. Kelsey Grammer's pompous, hyper-masculine Chuck had an on-air screw-up that, unfortunately, gained him YouTube infamy and sent him back to his small-scale local job in Pittsburgh. Darling's down-spiraling journey from the big leagues back to the little ones serves as an appropriate figure for the death of the sitcom, and his overly confident attitude serves as an even better one for Back to You's failure to facilitate the sitcom renaissance it thinks it's brought about.

Patricia Heaton's Kelly, with her Debora Barone-like feistiness, sets off sufficient sparks with co-anchor Darling, but the sparks lack afterglow. Kelly, who stayed with the lowly Pittsburgh job for the ten years Chuck spent in big cities, and Chuck share a back-story that will likely garner enough comic tension to sustain the series, but their big and empty personalities will put the already tired jokes in an irreversible coma. The supporting players, including a rarely funny sex-crazed weatherwoman (she likes to be called meteorologist, even though she isn't one) and a downright annoying high-strung news director, have even less human characteristics, with still lesser abilities at making witty banter.

Laugh tracks aren't so bad if they're drowned out by your own laughter. With Back to You, though, you'll always know the laugh tracks are there, like constant reminders from the producers that, yes, this is it, the return of the sitcom in all its pre-millennium glory. Then you'll realize that not one scene from the pilot is YouTube-worthy.

They say you can never go home again.

But this certainly isn't true for the sitcom characters played by Kelsey Grammer. First it was Dr. Frasier Crane, the pompous and effete psychiatrist who left a bar in Boston where everybody knew his name (Cheers) to be with his family in Seattle (Frasier). And now Grammer's new alter ego, TV anchor Chuck Darling, is returning home to Pittsburgh on Back to You (Fox, Global, 8 tonight).

Here are five things you should know about this new sitcom:

1. It's a traditional, multi-camera comedy that's filmed in front of a studio audience.

2. It co-stars Patricia Heaton (Everybody Loves Raymond) as anchor Kelly Carr.

3. It has a great script and clever backstory.

4. It has a talented cast.

5. It is funny.

But let's begin at the beginning � a 1996 newsclip from WURG Channel 9. It's Chuck's last day at the mid-market station in Pittsburg; he's leaving to be a smaller fish in progressively bigger ponds.

After stops in Minneapolis and Dallas, Chuck is hired by KZMB Channel 3 in Los Angeles. Alas, instead of parlaying this into a national gig, Chuck has a meltdown one night that's caught oncamera and promptly uploaded to YouTube ("L.A. Anchorman Fired After Freak Out.").

Cue the infamy. Cut to the present.

"The security guard is asleep, the hall smells like curry ― I'm back!" exclaims Chuck, upon his return to WURG.

Soon, we meet Chuck's new (and new-old) co-workers.

There's Ryan Church (Josh Gad), a 26-year-old from the station's Internet division who is now the frazzled news director with perspiration issues.

Montana Diaz Herrera (Ayda Field) is the weather person who overcompensates for her emotional insecurity by slinking around the newsroom in sexpot microskirts and plunging blouses.

Meanwhile, Marsh McGinley (Fred Willard) is the ex-jock sports reporter, a dim but lovable everyman given to incorrect gibes and puzzling non-sequiturs.

And Gary Crezyzewski (Ty Burrell) is the long-suffering field reporter who dreams about becoming an anchor while covering an endless array of fires, storms, court cases, bake sales and live remotes.

So what do you have? A bit of NewsRadio, a slice of Just Shoot Me, a touch of Murphy Brown and a nod to The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The real strength of Back to You abides in its powerhouse casting, specifically Grammer (for whom the role was written) and Heaton (who came aboard after falling in love with the character).

Whether they're perched at the anchor desk, mugging for the news cameras with polite banter and synchronized glee, or fuming behind closed doors, scowling at each other, the veteran duo possess the one intangible that every good comedy needs: chemistry.

Producers often say they don't want to hire actors that may be saddled with previous-role baggage. But that's precisely why Back to You works: when Chuck and Kelly are squabbling, it might as well be Frasier and Lilith, or Debra and Ray.

Because over the past two decades, sitcom viewers have been Pavloved to enjoy each actor's on-screen dysfunction; all it takes now is an arched brow or tremulous outburst.

Back to You was created, written and executive-produced by Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd, two comedy writers who worked on Frasier, among others.

And what they've done here ― at least based on the two episodes sent for review � is create a hybrid comedy (part workplace, part romantic) that manages to feel fresh and old at the same time.
BEVERLY HILLS - Here's all you need to know about the current state of the American television comedy: There will be just 20 live-action sitcoms this coming season; five years ago, there were twice that number. CBS and NBC - once home to TV's top sitcoms - have just four each on their fall schedules.

It's all a matter of diminishing returns.

What half-hour comedies there are on the air aren't doing particularly well. No sitcom has ranked in the Top 10 of most-watched shows since "Everybody Loves Raymond" ended its run in the spring of 2005. Last season, just one - "Two and A Half Men" - regularly ranked in the Top 20.

Still, there are comedy writers - good comedy writers - out there trying to find the one breakout hit that will revive the genre.

"It's become cool to trash the sitcom," says Steve Levitan, who has worked on "Frasier" and "Just Shoot Me" among other shows. "I understand why, because I think there have been a lot of bad shows throughout the years; some of them done by me.

"But I grew up watching 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' and 'All in the Family,' 'Mary Tyler Moore' and 'Cheers.' I know it's cool not to love (sitcoms), but I do love them."

Levitan is executive producer and co-creator of this season's highest-profile attempt to revitalize the traditional sitcom: Fox's "Back to You," which debuts at 8 tonight (Chs. 2, 35).

Back to basics


It's about as old school


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as you can get, including being filmed with multiple cameras before a live audience in an era when single-camera comedies with no laugh track are the norm. But if any new comedy looks like a sure thing on paper, it's Levitan's show.
His co-creator is Christopher Lloyd, one of the lead writers on "Frasier" during its heyday. Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton - returning to series TV for the first time since "Frasier" and "Raymond" - play a local news anchor team whose relationship is more than a bit rocky. Fred Willard ("Best in Show") heads the supporting cast as a cluelessly un-PC sports anchor. James Burrows - whose career dates back to "Mary Tyler Moore" - not only directed the pilot but is sticking around as the show's lead director.

It's a comedy all-star team and "it feels good to us," Lloyd says. "But there's such a low batting average in comedy that you have to go into the fight with all the weapons you can."

Grammer feels confident as well and perfectly happy with the perception of "Back to You" as a traditional piece of comedy work. "If by traditional you mean funny, yes, it's very traditional," he says with a laugh.

So far, "Back to You" has avoided one of the major problems afflicting TV comedy. Too often, network sitcoms are the product of group-think with network executives, studio bosses and researchers all weighing in on what the show ought to be. The result: a lack of singular comedic vision.

Levitan and Lloyd created "Back to You" outside the system. Before they approached a network, they wrote the pilot script, signed up Grammer and Heaton and brought in Burrows.

"We wanted to make the best show that we knew how to make," Lloyd says. "The way we went about it made that easier to do because we weren't beholden to any particular network.

"There was no sort of meddling, because it was a finished product."

Inspiration from TV news

At least in tonight's opening episode, the result is a polished bit of work with a very viable premise. Anyone who watches a lot of local news knows how often silliness seeps into the newscasts, even in major television markets. ("Back to You" is set in Pittsburgh.)

That's fertile ground for laughs, without straining credulity.

Levitan, who started his career in local news, says, "This world, I always thought, was extremely ripe for a comedy. What's so funny, to me, about local news is there's this great narcissism pretending to be altruism. It's just a wonderful place for a larger-than-life character to be a big fish in a small pond."

The inspiration for Grammer's character was an anchor Levitan worked with in Madison, Wis. The night John Lennon was murdered, the anchor came on the air to lead the station's coverage - only to have things go very wrong when he somberly announced that "Lennon is survived by his wife, Topo Gigio."

Topo Gigio, unfortunately, was the name of a puppet that often appeared on the "Ed Sullivan Show." Lennon was married to Yoko Ono.

Still, Levitan adds, the writers are working hard to make sure the show "is very accurate about the way that local news is done" - although Lloyd admits that "it wouldn't be too funny if they were totally brilliant at their jobs."

Good chemistry


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.

"It just seemed right. I thought, 'Oh, God, me and Kelsey together would be a lot of fun,' " says Heaton about why she decided to return to weekly television.

And their characters are different enough that Grammer and Heaton don't feel like they're reprising Frasier Crane and Debra Barone.

"Although Frasier was self-obsessed, he was trying to do the world some good," Grammer says. Chuck Darling "is trying to do himself some good. I think what makes him funny is that he has a kind of arrogance and a comfort in his own ego."

Now that they have built it, though, the question is: Will they, the viewers, come?

Fox, which won a bidding war for the show, certainly thinks so. The creators and cast of "Back to You" think so. And fans of the sitcom - both inside and outside the TV business - are hoping so.

Back to You

*** (first episode only)