BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Fox Entertainment President Peter Liguori promised earlier this week that his network would maintain its top position by taking chances and being dangerous.
A trio of new shows presented Friday at the TV Critics Association press tour both live up to and completely negate that concept.
The network that has given us such bold and classic comedies as “Arrested Development,” “The Simpsons,” “Married … With Children” and “Family Guy” falls completely flat with a new sitcom, “The War at Home,” that was presented Friday.
It’s just a sad, typical comedy that’s trying desperately not to be sad and typical.
Michael Rappaport (“Boston Public”) stars as a father of three kids: a teenage daughter who’s on the verge of exploring sex, a teenage son who he’s afraid might be gay, and a younger son.
The show, which will be Fox’s only nonanimated show on Sunday night, aims to be edgy and politically incorrect. Creator Rob Lotterstein said Friday that if people aren’t made uncomfortable by it, it must not be funny.
But it can be, and is, both discomforting and unfunny.
On the flip side, a pair of new dramas sport new plot devices and angles that could keep viewers on board to see how their seasons play out. While few people have room in their lives for another weekly appointment TV show, “Prison Break” and “Reunion” might be fun ones to slip into your calendar.
As “24” – still one of my favorites – becomes a little more repetitive, these two shows bring fresh faces and new concepts.
“Prison Break” focuses on Michael Scofield (played by Wentworth Miller of “Dinotopia” and “Joan of Arcadia”) who is trying to help his brother escape from prison. The brother, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell of “John Doe” and “Blade: Trinity”), is on death row for assassinating the vice president, but maintains his innocence.
Michael knows how to help his brother escape because, you see, he’s the engineer who built the prison. Michael commits a bank robbery to get hauled off behind bars, and the adventure begins.
Another new show, “Reunion,” starts with the present-day funeral of an unknown member in a group of six friends. Soon, we’re whisked back to 1986, when the friends graduated from high school.
The device at work here is that each episode will bring us one year closer to the funeral, and the mystery of who died and who killed that person will unfold in the process of 22 full episodes.
Mathew St. Patrick of “Six Feet Under” takes on the role of the detective investigating the murder and puts pieces of the puzzle together through interviews that flash viewers back to previous years.
Writer and executive producer Jon Harmon Feldman promises viewers won’t be strung along, though. We’ll know who’s dead relatively soon, and who did it will follow.
With such a large slate of paranormal, science-fiction dramas being thrown in our faces in the fall, a classic whodunit with a twist could be the antidote we need to weave through alien invasions, “things” in the water and urban legends come to life.
Seen and heard
Will Estes of “American Dreams,” which was canceled by NBC, is one of the stars of Fox’s “Reunion.” He was asked Friday if he knew that “Dreams” was finished before he got the new gig. He said it wasn’t official, “but I’m grateful that Jon thought it was dead enough in the water to cast me.”
Victor Balta is on assignment at the TV Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles, filing dispatches on the fall TV season. E-mail him at vbalta@heraldnet.com.
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