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Back to You
SERIES: Fox, Wednesday 8:00p (30 minutes)


5.2

based on 27 reviews
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based on 38 votes
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Get more information on this show at TV.com.

Official Show Site

Starring Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, Fred Willard, Ayda Field, Josh Gad, Laura Marano, and Ty Burrell

Kelsey Grammer's back on TV, this time as an anchorman returning to Pittsburgh after an on-air incident ruins his career in LA.

GENRE(S):	Comedy
CREATED BY:	Christopher Lloyd Steven Levitan
FIRST AIR DATE:	September 19, 2007

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Ken Tucker

I'd rather just watch Grammer and Heaton trade barbs in the newsroom. [21 Sep 2007, p.71]

Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron

There's no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to new TV series, but Back to You is as close as it gets.

Los Angeles Times Martin Miller

Fox's Back to You is back to TV comedy basics: multiple cameras, live audiences but, mostly, laughs.

Philadelphia Daily News Ellen Gray

Grammer and Heaton slip easily into characters who won't be easily mistaken for Frasier Crane or Debra Barone, the writing's professional, the supporting cast dependable (and in the case of Fred Willard, another "Raymond" veteran, dependably hilarious).

Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan

This is one of those comedies in which the actors’ and writers’ skills are so sharp that the whole enterprise feels effortless.

Miami Herald Glenn Garvin

You just can't get through two minutes of Back to You without a belly laugh.

Slate Troy Patterson

Back to You doesn't have a mandate to be inventive--to try new comedic beats or to attempt daring flights of absurdity. It just needs to be uninventive in a snappy way, a feat readily accomplished.

San Jose Mercury News Charlie McCollum

What really makes the opening episode work, though, is the chemistry between Grammer--as Chuck Darling, an egotistical newsman who has returned to Pittsburgh after his career stalled--and Heaton as his uptight longtime co-anchor, Kelly Carr, who isn't thrilled by his return.

USA Today Robert Bianco

Still, even when Back is faltering, you flash back to the skill of its stars and to moments when the show succeeds in making you laugh out loud.

Detroit Free Press Mike Duffy

The snap, crackle and pop of witty dialogue well delivered. That is the consistently amusing, escapist pleasure of Back to You.

Wall Street Journal Nancy DeWolf Smith

What Back to You lacks in bite, it compensates for with chemistry and pure talent. The center of it all is the relationship between Chuck and Kelly, and Mr. Grammer and Ms. Heaton work together like they have been doing it all their lives.

The New York Times Alessandra Stanley

Together Mr. Grammer and Ms. Heaton lift Back to You, a comedy that begins tonight on Fox, into a surprisingly amusing half-hour.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen

The pilot's plot leads them in a direction where "this just in" becomes an obvious sexual metaphor--some of it is funny, but there's just too much.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Melanie McFarland

Absolutely nothing about it is original or seeks to transform the half-hour genre. Still, the fact that it is executed by sure-footed comedy veterans more than makes up for the sin of familiarity.

Variety Brian Lowry

Grammer and Heaton spar like old hands, but the punches (and punchlines) are so consistently telegraphed, the series seldom rises above the mundane.

New York Daily News David Hinckley

So many parts of the pilot, though, seem dumbed down or sacrificing character for punch lines, you wonder why things weren't retooled in time for launch.

San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman

Three sitcom veterans can elevate comfortable mediocrity only so high. There's probably not one setup, premise or joke that you haven't seen before (or will see coming) in the entirety of your sitcom-watching life.

Washington Post Tom Shales

Yes, they're wicked wacky, this group, but they also seem to have been torn from the pages of the Sitcom Writer's Handbook, their status as foils and fools having been measured out in carefully calculated amounts, the final goal appearing to be not so much nonstop hilarity as the reassuring guarantee of No Surprises.

Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall

None of those jokes serve any purpose except to be jokes, and they suffer for the fact that real people don't talk, think or act this way.

Arizona Republic Randy Cordova

Whenever the action drifts away from Heaton or Grammer, the show starts to feel slack.

Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm

You have to admire Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton for holding up their end of the bargain, even if the material in their show, Back to You, is such a drop from "Frasier" and "Everybody Loves Raymond"

Newsday Diane Werts

There's just too much shtick and not enough personality, especially when the stars' previous hits found their funny in relatable human behavior.

Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert

This comedy is painfully broad, not to mention unimaginative and derivative of every newsroom sitcom from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to "LateLine" to "NewsRadio" to "Less Than Perfect."

Kansas City Star Aaron Barnhart

Workplace comedies just bore me.

New York Magazine John Leonard

After twenty years of stalwart service, Kelsey Grammer should be allowed back on television whenever he likes. But on a show like this, why would he want to be?

New York Post Adam Buckman

Back to You is no brains.

Chicago Sun-Times Doug Elfman

Back to You stinks, shames the sitcom form, is written and directed with smelly gusto, and is not original, funny or redemptive by any universal standards known to science, creation or TV executives.

The average user rating for this tv show is 5.2 (out of 10) based on 38 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Big J gave it a9:
Very funny show. Much better now than at the beginning of the series

Thomas H. gave it a10:
Excellent, fresh, and imaginative. This show has definate potential. Good to see Kelsey Grammer back on the box :)

Rick E. gave it a1:
I was tired of the show within 5 minutes. The whole show revolves around the tension between Grammer and Heaton. Unlike Frasier and Everybody Loves Raymond, where there were multiple tension points between the characters, which made for so many comedic moments.

Ann R gave it a2:
I only watched the pilot. Chuck and Kelly were fighting too much. It was stressful to watch. Heaton's character was very annoying.

Donald S. gave it a10:
GREAT new show. Laugh out loud may time every week.

Brian T. gave it a5:
Not terrible, but I expected something a lot sharper, considering the people involved. Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, and Fred Willard are fine, they can deliver an insult with the best of them. But something is really missing here. There is no originality, no edge. It stays very safely within the confines of the sitcom format, a dumb character, a nervous character just like Miles in Murphy Brown, and a pompous character. The writing is very conventional and only mildly funny. The sitcom genre has definitely seen better days.

helen s. gave it a3:
Its, just barely ok....the reason to me is this. In Frasier an Raymond, there was family chemistry, some drama and lots of very clever interplay. This is a show of one liners - not to my liking even though I love the stars.

Back to You SERIES: Fox, Wednesday 8:00p (30 minutes)

Back to You
SERIES: Fox, Wednesday 8:00p (30 minutes)