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Kelsey asks CBS to save Back to You
by Allison Waldman, posted May 16th 2008 8:00AM
Frasier has left the building, but Kelsey Grammer hasn't. Or maybe he just doesn't want to. The actor, whose Fox situation comedy, Back to You, was canceled after just one season, doesn't want to call it quits. He wants the show to continue and he's so determined, he's even lobbied for the show personally. The Emmy award winning star phoned CBS executives -- including CBS CEO Les Moonves -- to plead the case for Back to You. When Kelsey phoned, Les took the call, and he even told Grammer that he'd "think about it," that is, moving Back to You to CBS. However, when Kelsey followed up with a call to Nina Tassler, CBS Entertainment prez, she dismissed it. There really was no room on the CBS schedule for another sitcom; even Rules of Engagement (which CBS has a vested interest in bringing back) won't be broadcast till mid-season next year. There's no mention of Kelsey calling ABC or NBC; perhaps they didn't take his call?
I have to say that it's hard to believe that Kelsey Grammer would put himself out there for a show as mediocre as Back to You. He told Reuters, "I really believe in the show. If I didn't, I wouldn't have tried to fight for it."
Really, why? I mean, seriously, Back to You never lived up to the hype of two major stars -- Grammer and co-star Patricia Heaton -- and the writers from Frasier. In fact, it was the ill-conceived concept that did the show in. The whole idea that a conceited news anchor like Chuck Darling would return to his old stomping grounds -- Pittsburgh -- to reteam with another news personality, Kelly Carr, and stick around after finding out that she had his child after a one-night stand 10 years before, was ridiculous. He would have hopped the first JetBlue out of PA.
Comic situations work best when the principals are forced together -- like Frasier being forced to care for his father because he cannot put him in a nursing home (and Niles couldn't take him). In Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray and Deborah are stuck living across the street from his parents and brother -- they can't get away. That's funny.
In retrospect, Back to You might have worked better without the entire daughter angle. But it doesn't matter now. This sitcom is over and all the calls in the world to network brass won't save it.
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