In my column last week on the “manxiety” trend in the new fall shows, I singled out TNT’s Men of a Certain Age as one example of a series taking a subtle, non-insulting look at what it means to be a man. Focusing on three guys pushing 50—played by Scott Bakula, Andre Braugher and Ray Romano—it focuses on the trio’s wrestling with relationship issues, career challenges and (in the last episode before the midseason break) colonoscopies. Yet this loose, minutely observed comedy-drama, which returns tonight, is far more fun and less depressing than the numerous “emasculated” men that are all the rage (pun intended) in those disaffected-men sitcoms.
Men, unfortunately, doesn’t command the ratings of some of basic cable’s more escapist summer dramas. (TNT itself is debuting the forgettable Franklin and Bash.) But it handles its subject—life, when it gets unavoidably real—with charm and quiet good humor. I highly recommend it—even if you’re a woman, of any certain age.
