“Talk To Me”
Tonight at 9:30 p.m., WABC/Ch.7
1/2
WHICH show has the following elements?
A successful big city radio talk show host
A same-sex sibling
A dog
And an on-air shrink.
If you guessed “Frasier” you’re right. And if you guessed “Talk To Me” the new ABC sitcom premiering tonight, you’re right.
A genius, you are!
I can’t imagine that “Frasier” creator/producer Suzanne Martin had the guts to pitch the same show, (changing the siblings to sisters and the locale to NYC), but then again, in TV — if it works once — maybe it can work 700 more times.
Shockingly, this one often does. Work that is.
I was fully prepared to hate it — especially since the first episode is pretty lame with the exception of Gene Simmons (Kiss) who can be really, really funny.
I sat next to him on “Politically Incorrect” once and he made me look like I had a brain aneurysm he was so fast, and then I sat next to him on a plane another time and the fight attendant and I ended up sitting on his lap, but don’t ask.
The show has all the usual elements of other (failing) mid-season sitcom replacements: Good looking people in their late twenties/early thirties, an ensemble crew, screwy love lives and good apartments. (This one looks like Tony Randall and Jack Klugman finally gave theirs up).
In the first episode, talk show host Janey Munro (Kyra Sedgwick) is trying to get over a recent breakup, so the guys on her show, co-host Rob, (David Newsom), Marshall, (Max Baker), and Cam (Mike Estime), teach her to take it like a man.
Her on-air rival, talk-shrink Dr. Debra (Beverly D’Angelo), on the other hand tells her women need to express sorrow.
Then Dr. Debra semi-seduces the badly written station manager Sandy, (Peter Jacobson) whose father happens (please not again!) to own the station.
Meantime, Janey’s sister Kat, who volunteers for a living, needs to break off her dog-walking afternoons with her neighbor. (If you have no idea what I’m talking about or how this fits in anywhere, neither do I.)
Janey goes on many dates and then strips down to her bra and skirt and straddles a guy and then they both cry.
Episode Two gets better when Janey almost has an affair with Paulina, the model who plays not-a-model.
Shockingly, Paulina has no accent and after all those kids, no stomach either. Nor thighs. Oh, and no hips either.
The producers can’t risk waiting out a second season slump for the obligatory lesbian kiss-scene, they get to it in the second episode instead.
The most shocking thing about it all is discovering that Paulina can act. What was she — a leper healer in a former life that she gets so many perks in this one?
Anyway, Janey decides she’s not a lesbian after kissing Paulina, but since lesbians are better kissers, she hangs around for lessons.
Now, given all this, I don’t know why I don’t hate it, but it’s kind of fun, and the back-up guys are very good.
The dogs are cute (yes, they have more dogs by Episode Two and they even shamelessly throw in a Jack Russell).
The writing is good, and there’s a coupla laughs along the way, which is becoming rarer on networks these days than legs on fish.
The producers should add Kyra’s real life hilarious brother, Rob, to the mix.