Hank

Two comedy pilots for this season that didn’t exactly thrill me were what we might call the Back To You pair: The Middle, a single-camera quirk-com starring Patricia Heaton, and Hank, a multi-camera quirk-free comedy with Kelsey Grammer. The former incorporates too many clichés of its genre, like the abrasive tone, the voice-over narration, the wacky flashbacks, and the determination to give almost every character some kind of wacky dysfunction. It may get better, but it may not, since this is exactly the type of show that tends to burn itself out fast.

Let critic Jaime J. Weinman be your fall TV guide