Back in the Game

As a long-time baseball fan, I have been watching Back in the Game since it debuted and to me, it has the makings of a hit. It's the first sitcom about little league baseball since The Bad News Bears struck out on CBS in 1980.

What makes this show better than the show based on the movie series are the solid performances of Maggie Lawson, who ends up coaching her son's little league team and in his first sitcom role as her alcoholic father, James Caan. Caan seems to handle the sitcom format really well.

Let's not forget the actor who plays Lawson's son and the other members of The Angles. The add a lot to the show.

Back in the Game also reminds me of a boon i read when i was a youngster, The Year Mom Won the Pennant by Matt Christopher. Could Lawon's character lead The angles to the pennant? Watch this show. It hits a home run.

I don't have children so I love it....It's borderline offensive but the thing is this...its not a kids show or is it :-) I am laughing so loud that my girlfriend things I am having a psychotic break...characters are very funny, acting is OK, story line is improving every week and The Cannon is just hilarious and makes Peter from Family guy look like a choir boy!

Its not the greatest show ever but I don't think it wants to be. Its 20 minutes long and I laugh 10 times on average....what more can you want, therefore I am giving the show an 8 out of 10 and this has nothing to do with the looks of the lead female character.....:-)!

Terry Gannon (Maggie Lawson) is a divorced mother who has to move back in with her grumpy former baseball player father Terry 'The Cannon' Gannon, Sr. (James Caan). She has no money and no job. When her boy is stuck on the worst baseball team, she becomes their coach.

It started slowly, but it got better as it went along. They finally got a girl on the team like the Bad News Bears. But it's a little too late being canceled after the 6th episode. The kids took a long while before they got the Bad News Bears feel. They're still missing the criminal bad boy. Maggie Lawson is passable, but she was never a wacky comedian. She was basically the straight man in Psych. James Caan needed some time to find the heart of the character. The first few episodes, he was simply a cranky old man. This show was slowly righting itself but the TV climate today can't allow a show to wallow for a season.

Of all the new shows coming out this month this one stands on top. I could tell that it has strong writing after the first few episode and that it is disciplined. Not to much trivial detail that overwhelms the viewer in the first few minutes, instead, it progresses character development and a slow sustainable pace that allows other sub-plots to emerge gradually.

Currently I don't know what other projects that the writers/creators are responsible for but I intend to check them out. The cast is great. They appear to be a nice co-operative bunch. Looking forward to a good run of episodes that can get increasingly better as do most of my favourite shows - good effort from all involved.

Congrats.

I only wish some of the other shows that started this week could watch how you guys do it.

It's good they hired some people to write favorable reviews of this new show, because that's the only way they're going to get them. I tuned in because I'm a fan of Maggie Lawson, and it seemed like she was doing her best, but the writing is atrocious, the characters are shallow, and even James Caan can't give this program any gravity. In the episode where Maggie's character wants a night out, the actors kept trying to make something happen, but the situations fell flat (when they weren't over-the-top). The so-called clever dialog of the young Little League team isn't the least bit clever (the Bad News Bear they are not), and overall there is a stiffness to the show that offsets its few good moments. This one will not be filling up my DVR.