Fall TV Preview

SYNOPSIS

Today it's a woman's world, and this man's man is on a mission to get men back to their rightful place in society.

Tim Allen returns to ABC in this new comedy from Jack Burditt (30 Rock). Men may have built civilizations, invented the locomotive and created ESPN, but they're about to find out that it's not a man's world anymore. You can't get manlier than Mike Baxter. He's the marketing director for an iconic outdoor sporting goods store, he loves to have adventures while he's traveling for work and, of course, he drives a pick-up truck. While Mike is king of the hill at work, he's the odd man out in a home that is dominated by women -- namely his wife, Vanessa, and their three daughters, 22- year-old Kristin, 17-year-old Mandy and 14-year-old Eve. After being a stay-at-home mom for years, Vanessa recently returned to the workplace and was quickly promoted (much to the dismay of her primarily male co-workers). As a result of Vanessa's increased work load, Mike is pulled into more hands-on parenting than ever before.

starring:
Tim Allen as Mike
Nancy Travis as Vanessa
Molly Ephraim as Mandy
Alexandra Krosney as Kristin
Kaitlyn Dever as Eve
Hector Elizondo as Ed

credits:
Executive Producer / Writer: Jack Burditt
Executive Producer: Tim Allen
Executive Producer: Becky Clements
Executive Producer: Marty Adelstein
Executive Producer: Shawn Levy
Executive Producer: Richard Baker
Executive Producer: Rick Messina
Director: John Pasquin
Production Company: Twentieth Century Fox Television

REVIEWS

Please note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

Gordon McDougall's Take
Tim Allen must have had a lingering deal with ABC/Disney to do another sitcom at some point. I’m sure it was a deal that was made back when he was more popular—and certainly a little more relevant. I can’t imagine anyone thinks a thinly revamped Home Improvement (with daughters instead of sons) would work in 2011, but TV executives are holding their noses and getting this show out of the way. Tim’s Mike Baxter is pretty much a carbon copy of Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, except instead of being a hardware expert, he’s an outward bound enthusiast. Instead of a wife who doesn’t understand his “maleness”, now he has a whole household of females who don’t. Nancy Travis is another long-suffering wife (ten years younger), and his daughters are tolerantly embarrassed by him. Watching the first episode of this show reminded me of watching Paul Reiser’s return to sitcomland last spring (which lasted two episodes). Just as Reiser tried to rekindle his Mad About You goodwill, Allen is trying to recapture the magic of Home Improvement, but it just comes off too much as a pale copy of a show that no longer matters. I think this is a show that will limp along for a few weeks and quietly disappear.
Rating: Watch it while you can! (Canceled early on)
About Gordon McDougall TVGord is a radio host at 580 CFRA in Ottawa. He does a weekly segment about TV every friday which you can hear in MP3 in the '580 CFRA Interviews' section of their website, www.cfra.com