Back to You

Editorial Review

Kelsey Grammer is back on the small screen in a role quite different from, yet reminiscent of, the Frasier Crane character most of us know him from. After 11 years as Frasier, it's hard to see Grammer as anyone else, so he's wise to inject the character of anchorman Chuck Darling with perfectly enunciated pomposity and a degree of helpless bluster.

Playing Chuck's co-anchor Kelly Carr, Patricia Heaton has also taken a familiar role, with the Everybody Loves Raymond star adopting another impatient, borderline-harridan character. However, while her portrayal of control freak Deborah was a sassy foil to Ray Romano's bumbling confusion in Raymond, here she plays second fiddle to Grammer, consistently coming off as the lesser comic character.

This episode further explores the unacknowledged sexual tension between the two characters - a predictable comic devise rendered redundant by the strong suspicion that a relationship between the two would completely disintegrate the premise of the series and therefore will never actually happen. This is cut through with bimbo humour, courtesy of Montana Diaz Herrara (Ayda Field), and heavy-handed irreverence from Marsh McGinley (Fred Willard).

The total package of Back to You is pretty weak, with insipid supporting characters and predictable humour. It's hauled up above abysmal by the always-on-form Grammer and, to a lesser extent, Heaton.

Back to You airs on Network Ten on Wednesday, April 23, at 8pm.

Shelley Tustin, April 2008

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