A Fruitful Fall Pilot Season Continues

Back To You

If Back to You had been created in 1999, back when Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond could do no wrong, it would have seemed too good to be true. The show follows the return of Chuck Darling (Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer) to a news anchor position in Pittsburgh that he had left years before. Some old acquaintances are still at the news desk, including Darling’s former co-host Kelly Carr (Raymond’s Patricia Heaton), and buried demons are quickly drudged up. The show isn’t anything groundbreaking and can feel a little dated—mostly because of its egregious use of the laugh track, which we’d all hoped American sitcoms had overcome. But Grammer and Heaton play off each other well, and the other characters seem promising—particularly Fred Willard’s sportscaster, though we’re not going to pretend it didn’t make us a little nostalgic for Anchorman.—Alexandria Symonds

Bionic Woman

Before you rush to Gen Y judgment, rest assured: Mom and Dad won’t recognize this Bionic Woman. NBC’s grittier take on the campy 1970s series reinvents Jaime Sommers (British actress Michelle Ryan) as a San Francisco bartender juggling work, the rapidly approaching six-month mark with her bioethics professor boyfriend, and sole guardianship of a rebellious younger sister. A car wreck, which is far more plausible than the original version’s skydiving accident, turns Jaime’s life upside down—she wakes up in a cryptic medical facility to find the majority of her limbs, an ear, and an eye replaced with scientifically engineered “bionics” designed to “enhance baseline human strength... and then some.” This Bourne-meets-Buffy drama boasts a slick look, a hint of film noir, and a likable lead actress. It’s tough to get past the cheesy pseudoscientific talk and cringe-worthy one-liners, but if you pull that off, you just might get sucked in.—Rachel Mosely

Dirty Sexy Money

Chronicling the human mistakes of the wealthy and privileged—it’s how the tabloid industry thrives. Given Dirty Sexy Money’s reliance on this format, there’s little question that the show will succeed. Nick George, a do-gooder lawyer, grew up sharing his father with the Darlings, a high-society family. After his father’s death, the Darling patriarch offers Nick a devil’s deal: $10 million a year to any good cause Nick wants, in addition to an exorbitant salary to become the family’s lawyer. The premise is intriguing, but Dirty Sexy Money will live or die by the appeal of its characters. Patrick Darling, a squeaky-clean politician, is in love with a transgendered prostitute; Karen Darling is obsessed with Nick; the twins, Juliet and Jeremy, are quintessential attention-seeking, drug-overdosing babies of the family. It’s tabloid-ready drama—just as salacious and shocking and just as much of a guilty pleasure to enjoy.—Sally Cohen-Cutler

Kitchen Nightmares

Once in a while, you step into a restaurant that is simply terrible. Gordon Ramsay, star of Fox’s hit show Hell’s Kitchen, has begun to seek them out. His latest foray into culinary reality is an American knockoff of his British television show, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Whatever the problem, Gordon is on a mission to get the mess cleaned up. After a preliminary test of the restaurant—in which he verbally tears it to pieces—he then makes it his mission to turn the restaurant around. This dose of “reality” comes equipped with the basic accented host and emotional meltdowns of his weekly prey. What it lacks, however, are originality, endearing characters, and an interesting story line. For anyone who is still searching for the next Simon Cowell, Kitchen Nightmares is a decent way to spend an hour, but for everyone else, the show is somewhat of a nightmare.—Shane Ferro

Gossip Girl

Illegal drug use implied within the first five minutes of the first episode? Check. Extravagant outfits that probably cost more than your meal plan? Check. Underage drinking, inattentive parents, steamy sex scenes? Please—this is Gossip Girl, not 7th Heaven. It looks like The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz and Cecily von Ziegesar’s young adult book series were meant to be together. Gossip Girl has all the ingredients an addictive teen soap needs, plus a few extra tricks up its sleeve: namely, impressive production values and genuinely compelling, fresh-faced lead actresses Blake Lively and Leighton Meester. It’s nearly impossible not to get sucked into the drama of their Upper East Side existences. Will Nate dump Blair for Serena? Will Chuck mack on Jenny at this week’s big party? Will you ever be able to get homework done on Wednesday nights again?—Hillary Busis

Kid Nation

No bedtime? No parents? No way! CBS’s new show, and latest controversy magnet, Kid Nation is a compelling, gritty social experiment that isolates 40 kids, aged eight to 15, in an abandoned town in New Mexico, where they must work cooperatively to create a functional society. Especially moving are the weekly town meetings. The feelings each kid shares—and how the others react to him or her—might bring you to tears but will definitely remind you of the innate compassion of children. Because participants only leave if they want to leave, the main attraction is not who is backstabbing whom on elimination night. Kid Nation serves to remind us all that a little communication can go a long way.—Mollie Lobl

Life

If House traded in his Vicodin prescription for a daily dose of apples and self-help tapes, you’d get Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis)—leading man on NBC’s Life who, minus his baby-blue eyes and damaged personality, isn’t much like the caustic practitioner at all. Life is a hybrid between a who-done-it detective thriller and a procedural one-hour sitcom where cop-outs and clichés abound. After being released from maximum security prison for a crime he didn’t commit, this cop-turned-inmate-turned-detective, Crews, struggles to find meaning in his life and in the lives of those around him. By day, he works to solve cases with his LAPD partner, Dani Reese (Sarah Shahi), and given their on-screen tension, the duo is set to form the romantic subplot for the drama. By night, and in his spare time, Crews romps around his mansion and attempts to figure out who framed him for triple homicide. But with an already-hampered script and lackluster cast, Life may need a differential diagnosis, stat.—Laura Hedli