Like many of its unfortunate contemporaries, Back to You was done no favors by the writers’ strike.
Sure, unlike several axed shows that were nowhere to be seen after the strike hiatus finished, Back to You made a return to the air in late February, but this was a show that needed all the breaks it could get — just not a two and a half month long one. The strike undercut any hope the show had of establishing a solid fan base, and despite achieving better ratings than its lead-in – the wretched ‘Til Death – it wasn’t picked up by FOX for another season.
So, presumably the show is canceled for good, but rumblings of Back to You being shopped to other networks are still around, despite no conclusive evidence. And oddly enough, the DVD set is titled Back to You: Season 1, leaving the door open for subsequent seasons, I guess.
Honestly, I hope no one picks it up. It’s passable entertainment most of the time, but you can’t help feeling like sitcom veterans Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton are slumming it a little bit, and really deserve better material than this. The show was hotly anticipated for this teaming of perceived comedy gold, but even these two can’t shake off the blasé that Back to You wallows in.
To their credit, Grammer and Heaton give it their all, tossing barbs back and forth and engaging in all sorts of ridiculous physical comedy for the good of the show, but Back to You is about a decade too late. Multi-camera sitcoms without a healthy dose of irony are so 1995.
Besides the utter lack of originality, many of the weak scripts rely primarily on rapid-fire sexual innuendo for humor, and it gets old really quick. “This just in” is only funny if Michael Scott follows it up with “That’s what she said.”
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