https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk3MzkdiJfA
Tonight at 8p, Last Man Standing is back but on Fox and not ABC. I, for one, was happy when I heard about this because I like the sitcom. It is one of the few shows that is responsible when showing both sides of the political spectrum.
They still do that, but they have some rough spots to work through after having a season off. The biggest problem is that Molly Ephraim left the show and now Molly McCook is playing Mandy. She is completely different than the original actress and is not working for me. She is not as lovable in the role.
The show starts off by making fun of the channel change and then take on politics. Ryan (Jordan Masterson) is glued to television and he is obsessed with how Donald Trump is ruining America. Mike (Tim Allen) has a talk with his son-in-law and that gives him a great idea. Ryan decides to move his family to Canada. Kristin (Amanda Fuller) is not sure if she wants to leave her country for her husband’s country. What will they decide? While we wait for their decision, the Baxters are all fighting with each other.
I was not wowed by the first two episodes, but like Suits, I think they will find their groove and be better than before.
Then at 8:30p, The Cool Kids debuts and I am enjoying this comedy by Charlie Day.
Charlie (Martin Mull), Hank (David Alan Greer) and Sid (Leslie Jones) all live in a retirement community and think they are the cool kids in the place. The fourth member of their group just died and now they have an open seat at their table.
New resident Margaret (Vicki Lawrence) sees the open chair at their table and sits down. The guys don’t want her there, but she does not care. She is one tough chick who truly is a cool kid.
As the guys try to throw a party for their late friend, things don’t go their way. That is until Margaret offers to help them out. Now, these three grumpy men who are settled in their ways will have a new lease on life thanks to their rebellious new friend. She will get them to feel like they are in their 40’s again.
Next week she takes them out to a nightclub and the following week, she gets them to try online dating. None of it will go smoothly, which is what we want.
These four comedic legends remind us how funny sitcoms can be. It is amazing to think that they have not worked together before because they instantly have chemistry. Plus, who doesn’t love Vicki Lawerence? Then there is Leslie Jordan who is sweeter than sweet tea. Mull is perfect for the former hippie. While DAG is perfect as the know it all who knows nothing.
If you want to be a cool kid, then watch The Cool Kids.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZhHZUYxUgo
Finally at 9p, Hell’s Kitchen changes things up. Last season it was all about the All-Stars. This season it is Rookies vs Veterans.
That means that people who have never been on the cooking competition will be going up against people who have been there before. While that is a big change. The biggest change is that this the first time in the show’s history where it is not girls vs boys. Final-freaking-ly. It is a new dynamic for it and I love it.
We will get to see how they react when one kitchen is not full of cattiness and the other one machismo. You know, it is so much better. Hopefully, Gordon Ramsay will keep it like this for future seasons.
Back to this season, the winner is vying for a position at the world’s first Gordon Ramsay HELL’S KITCHEN Restaurant at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and $250,000. Will it be someone we know or someone we meet tonight?
Tonight is the second night of the fall season and it is the worst night of television on all of the networks except for NBC. Tonight, we will be crying over This Is Us and tomorrow the heads of ABC, CBS and Fox will be crying over their how bad their shows are.
As I did yesterday and will continue to do, I will do my opinion of best to worst and tonight is a lot of worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvMCbzrToAo
I will start off with New Amsterdam that debuts at 10p on NBC. It is my favorite new show of the season. It was the only pilot that made me cry. That is because there is a lot of heart in the medical drama. It is not too focused on medical procedures or being a soap opera. It is about the patient as an individual and the doctors who want to make them feel better.
Dr. Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold) is the brand medical director at Bellevue Hospital in NYC. He is going to shake things up at his new job. He tells the doctors put the patient before billing and he means it. He fires the whole cardiac surgical unit because that is what they do.
He wants to hear what the doctors want, so they can make the hospital a better place. The doctors are more than willing to do it, and it is starting to make them better doctors. How long can they do this before the money people make them stop? Not only that Dr. Goodwin has a secret of his own, one that might limit how long he stays at the hospital.
Thankfully he has a lot of good doctors to back him up like Dr. Hana Sharpe (Freema Agyeman), Dr. Laura Bloom (Janet Montgomery), Dr. Floyd Pearson (Jocko Sims), Dr. Anil Kapoor (Anupam Kher) and Dr. Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine).
I just love the feel of the show because it is a medical drama but not one that makes you feel like you might get diagnosed with one the unusual illnesses they have. Plus, Ryan Eggold plays the role so brilliantly. He is one of them, while also being their boss. You can feel the compassion in his performance.
Actually, you feel the compassion about the whole show and that is why it is my favorite new show of the season.
It is the first Monday after the Emmys and that means it is time for the start of the fall season on broadcast TV. As much as this pains to me say, this is the weakest one for new shows in a really long time. Since there are a lot of shows premiering over the next few weeks, I am going to put them all in one post on a daily basis from, what I think is, best to worst.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhKmfJrnrw0
The best show of the night goes to a new one and that is Manifest that debuts on NBC at 10p. Michaela (Melissa Roxburgh) and her family went on vacation with her brother, Ben (Josh Dallas), his wife Grace (Athena Karkanis), their twins, Cal (Jack Messina) and Olive (Luna Blaise) and their parents (Malachy Cleary and Geraldine Leer) and it is time to go home.
Michaela is ready to get home, but she will do anything not to travel with her nagging mom. When the airline opens up 4 seats, she decides to go along with her brother and his son who is battling cancer. Cal’s diagnosis is grim, so Ben wants to spend some time alone with him. They just have no idea what will happen next.
Their flight seems normal until they hit some turbulence. Once things level out, it is time to land at JFK. Air traffic control tells them to land at a nearby airport instead. When they get there, they find out that it has been 5 and 1/2 years since they took off. No one has aged a day in that time, while everyone else on the ground, including their family, has.
After several hours of quarantine, the passengers are reunited with their families. Now, they have to adjust to being together again. That is not the only difference, they start hearing a voice in their head that tells them to do something. They do not understand and that is something we are going to find out.
While I really like the pilot, I am cautionary optimistic because we have been down this road before with sci-fi shows. They give a good pilot and then it is all downhill from there. Hopefully, this will break that pattern. Please break the pattern because there is a lot of potential here.
For the rest of tonight’s reviews, then click here!
Lil Rel Howery is the breakout star from Get Out, and tonight after the football game he gets his show on Fox. Lil Rel teams up with his former co-star Jerrod Carmichael, who is now his executive producer, for Rel.
Rel had it all, a beautiful wife and two kids, but then she cut him out her life when she slept with his barber. Now he is trying to adjust to single life with his kids being so far away from him. Thankfully, he has his father (Sinbad) who is not that supportive. His brother Nat (Jordan L. Jones) who just got out of jail for dealing crack, I mean ecstasy. Plus, his best friend Tiffany (Jessica Moore) who keeps it real with him. She even sets up him with her friend who has something everyone makes fun of her about.
Good thing his preacher (Lil Rel) likes to use his family and him as examples in his sermons. Good thing for us, not for him.
Rel has a lot of potential because of the people in front of and behind the camera like Carmichael and The Simpson’s Mike Scully. It is not The Carmichael Show, but it is definitely a sitcom we can all fall in love with.
After tonight, we will get more episodes starting on September 30th at 9:30p.
Back in May, Fox and Lethal Weapon fired Clayne Crawford from the show and then they hired Seann William Scott to replace him.
Now we are getting a first look to see how well he and Damon Wayans will play off of each other. I think we can all agree that they have enough chemistry to make it work.
So much so, I cannot wait to see him make his debut as Wesley Cole on September 25th. But then again Scott makes everything better.
