I woke up at 5 this morning and since then I have been thinking "Is it
on yet?". I can't wait!
Regards ... Les
Can 'Back to You' save the sitcom?
SHOW HAS HELP FROM TV VETERANS IN FRONT AND BEHIND CAMERAS
By Charlie McCollum
Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
Article Launched:09/19/2007 01:33:13 AM PDT
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 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)
Airing: 8 tonight, Chs. 2, 35
Contact Charlie McCollum at cmccollum@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
or (408)
920-5245. Find more of his stories and a link to his blog at
www.mercurynews.com/charliemccollum
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