Monty Brinton/CBS
…such as it is. While a number of shows are returning tonight, there’s only one new show, par for the course in this strike-deprived fall: CBS’s sitcom Worst Week. Based on a British comedy, it’s the type of show that’s virtually unreviewable on the basis of one pilot episode. In a nutshell, it’s about Sam (Kyle Bornheimer), an engaged man visiting his fiance’s parents for a stretch during which everything that can go wrong does. Property is damaged, sensibilities are offended, poultry is accidentally desecrated in the dark of night. (Hint: It’s something much worse than what is about to befall the bird in the publicity photo here.)
The first episode is pretty funny, aided by a turn by Kurtwood Smith as the gruff dad, but you may be wondering whether you liked this better when it was a Ben Stiller movie (wasn’t it?). Which is why I reserve judgment: like many new shows we saw last fall, Worst Week seems like a premise better suited to a movie than a TV series, so I’ll be very curious to see how it wears. But for tonight, you could do worse.
In returning action, Heroes comes back (I gave a mixed review to the first hour of the two-hour debut). It seems to try to fix some of last season’s flaws—among other things, a sluggish opening—by jumping off immediately from the end of the season 2 finale and by giving Hiro a prominent, present-day storyline. On the other hand, Maya and Mohinder are still dragging the action down (albeit at least doing it in the same scenes together, minimizing their impact), and when Sylar spends yet a third season brain-hopping from hero to hero to obtain powers, it loses its creep factor. (This time, at least, he does find some tantalyzing news inside one character’s noggin.)
Finally, there’s the one show I’ve been more anxious to see than any other, but which, between personal business and business-business, I haven’t yet stolen 22 minutes to watch: the return of How I Met Your Mother. We’ll discuss that more tomorrow morning.