No question, Ted Danson is a professional sitcom star. The lines he delivers are slick, professional-sitcom caliber. Several members of his supporting cast boast network sitcom credentials.
So why is ABC’s “Help Me Help You,” premiering at 8:30 tonight on KMGH-Channel 7, so run-of-the-mill?
The audience has moved on, that’s why. Sitcom-y repartee about being messed up, angry, commitment-phobic or a homosexual in denial feels so last millennium.
Old-style jokes about group therapy are as dated as the idea of a therapist whose own life is a mess (think Frasier and Niles Crane). The focus wasn’t the actual therapy sessions conducted by the Crane brothers, as it is here in Dr. Bill Hoffman’s (Danson) practice on “Help Me Help You.” And judging by the pilot, the camera’s regular visits to the therapy group feel awfully limiting. Come to think of it, depictions of therapy on television haven’t been particularly funny since Bob
Newhart and “Dr. Katz” took on the psychodrama of neurotics talking out loud.
One of the strongest elements of this half-
hour is the appearance of Jane Kaczmarek (“Malcolm in the Middle”) as Bill’s wife of 25 years, now intent on divorcing him. As Anne, Kaczmarek lights up the screen, glaring daggers at Bill. The two of them volley like an Agassi-Federer rally, but unfortunately she’s only an occasional guest.
Jim Rash (“Sky High”) plays the requisite metrosexual in deep denial about being gay, a joke that producers threaten to extend well beyond the pilot. Darlene Hunt (“I Huckabees”) plays the patient obsessed with Dr. Hoffman. Suzy Nakamura (“DodgeBall”) is clever as the successful workaholic with no social skills. Jere Burns (memorable as a group-therapy patient on the similarly themed “Dear John”) is eye-catching as the member of the group with serious anger issues. And Charlie Finn (the “Dukes of Hazzard” movie) plays, for laughs mind you, a suicidally depressed young office worker.
The show’s scheduling, following ABC’s white-hot “Dancing With the Stars,” will give it the initial exposure needed to take off. Whether enough viewers stick around in subsequent weeks for continued sessions remains to be seen.
And how does that make you feel? Angry, sad, depressed or all of the above?
“Heroes”
A politician’s brother is convinced he can fly. A rural high school cheerleader believes she is physically indestructible. An Internet stripper learns she can communicate with her image in the mirror. An artist discovers he can paint scenes from the future. A cop hears people’s thoughts. And a young man in Japan develops a way to alter time.
Meanwhile, a genetics professor in India follows his father’s mysterious disappearance to uncover a secret theory: People with superpowers are living among us.
Pow! Zap! Thunk! Sounds like a comic book, but really it’s another of TV’s dark serial dramas, albeit one with a comic-book sensibility. NBC’s “Heroes,” at 8 p.m. Mondays on KUSA-Channel 9, is a frighteningly close knockoff of “Lost” – down to the Japanese dialogue with English subtitles – minus the brilliance that makes “Lost” profound.
A huge amount of action, story and character is tossed into this mix and some clever touches, like the comic-book renderings of certain scenes. Too bad you can see the production laboring to be clever; the staff shouldn’t let us see them sweat.
“Heroes” chews on the relevant themes of so many of this year’s dramas: fears of an apocalyptic something-or-other on the horizon; unexpected connections among strangers; alienation and vulnerability.
It offers a powerful wish-fulfillment fantasy for tense times. And yet it does so self-consciously, without the depth of ABC’s upcoming “The Nine” or the subtlety of NBC’s “Kidnapped.” Too often, plot turns in “Heroes” leave you wishing you could rewrite the scene.
It’s possible this hour from Tim Kring (“Crossing Jordan”) will register with a junior audience. Certainly Masi Oka (“Scrubs”), as the exuberant space-time traveler, deserves breakout attention.
But we know the beautifully crafted “Lost,” and so far, sir, “Heroes” is no “Lost.”
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
