“Sunnyside” is a new sitcom from NBC starring Kal Penn. He’s of course most known for his role as Kumar Patel the Harold and Kumar movies. He plays Garrett Modi who is a disgraced former New York City councilman. He got elected promising to look out for the little people and then sat on his ass for years doing nothing. He was unanimously voted out of office by his colleagues after a DUI arrest that went viral on YouTube.

He tries to reinvent himself and redeem his image so he can get back into politics. Along the way he runs into a group of immigrants who need his help to pass their naturalization test.

The cast of immigrants is played by a variety of different ethnic types. You won’t recognize any of them. It’s a little bit difficult after just one episode for all of these strange characters to define themselves. Penn’s character is your typical loser who is self-centered and lazy. The premise is that when he takes up the cause of these people, it turns his life around.

I always judge a sitcom by the standard “Did it make me laugh?” And I suppose I got a chuckle or two along the way. But it’s not really very memorable.

I suppose there is potential here if you get to know the characters but I’m not sure it can hold your interest that long. It isn’t terrible but it really isn’t very interesting. I’m giving it a recommendation of “Skip it“. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an early cancellation.

The new Fox drama “Almost Family” is the story of Julia Bechley played by Brittany Snow. Her father Leon Bechley played by Timothy Hutton is a famous fertility doctor. It is revealed that he has used his own semen to impregnate 100 women. Julia discovers that among them are childhood friend Eddie Palmer played by Megalyn Echikunwoke, and retired Olympic athlete Roxy Doyle played by Emily Osment. I haven’t bothered to tell you the resume of these people. You can click on the names to look them up on IMDb.

Although technically a drama, at times the show is a bit too lighthearted for such a serious topic. Some of the characters are bit goofy and the others are mostly unlikable. Only Snow’s character comes across as mildly sympathetic trying to deal with the situation.

The show is based on an Australian TV series titled “Sisters“. That was going to be this show’s original title and then it was changed to “Not Just Me” and then finally its current title. This tells me even the writers and producers couldn’t really decide what the show was all about.

I was only able to make it through about half of the one hour pilot episode before giving up. I give it my worst rating of “Worthless“. Rotten Tomatoes gives it 25% and Metacritic gave it 40/100. I’m not going to waste my time or yours discussing it further.

CBS has been touting Patricia Heaton’s new sitcom “Carol’s Second Act” as her return to CBS. This is referring to her highly successful starring role in “Everybody Loves Raymond” where she played Ray Romano’s wife Debra for nine seasons. Since then she’s had a variety of TV roles on other networks including another nine years on “The Middle“… a show I never watched but it must’ve been reasonably good to harass that long.

Like last year’s series “The Rookie” in which Nathan Filion becomes a rookie cop in his 40s, in this sitcom Heaton plays a retired teacher who decides to start a second career in medicine. The show picks up on her first day as an intern where she is often mistaken as an attending physician because of her age. She’s also mistaken as the head resident because she’s wearing a long lab coat which she explains isn’t really long, she’s just short.

At times she uses her experience as an evidentiary school teacher to treat her fellow younger interns like they were eight-year-olds which is neither interesting nor funny. It tries to be poignant but fails that that as well.

As I previously noted in my review of “Bob Hearts Abashola“, any sitcom that has to rely on poop or fart jokes does not bode well for quality comedy. Sadly this sitcom suffers the same fate.

It is mildly reminiscent of “Scrubs” in that it is a hospital workplace comedy and although I wasn’t a big fan of “Scrubs” I don’t think this new entry into the genre stands up to even that low bar.

Kyle McLaughlin costars as the chief attending doctor and although he has played somewhat comic roles in the past, the broad comedy of this sitcom and the goofiness of his character doesn’t seem to work very well. The rest of the supporting cast consisting of nurses and other interns is so interesting it’s not worth it to describe them.

As I’ve often stated my ultimate test of a sitcom is “Did it make me laugh?” Unfortunately this one didn’t.

Before I waste anymore of your time or mine let me just say I’m giving it a strong rating of “Skip It“. Move along… Nothing to see here.

Recently BBC America debuted a new series “A Discovery of Witches” that originally appeared on Sky One network in the UK. Season 1 runs for eight episodes. There will be a season 2 and 3 but no word on if they will be aired in the US.

The premise is that various “Creatures” namely witches, vampires, and demons live among us and hide in plain sight. The main character Diana Bishop is the last in a long line of distinguished witches. She however rejects her abilities and tries to avoid using magic of any kind although it occasionally leaks out of her. It’s not just that she is worried about being revealed for who she is. She just doesn’t want to belong to the whole community of creatures. She works as a historian with a special interest in alchemy and how it eventually led to scientific inquiry. S he visits Oxford to research some of Elias Ashmole’s papers. When she checks out a particular manuscript she discovers it is somehow bewitched and triggers some series of strange events. The manuscript believed to be long-lost may hold the key to the origins of vampires and other creatures.

Along the way she encounters a vampire named Matthew Clairmont. Apparently in this particular universe vampires are day walkers. Although vampires and witches are not supposed to get along, they team up to uncover the mysteries of this lost manuscript. From what I’ve read about the series there is eventually some sort of romantic attraction develops between the two of them. Unfortunately I didn’t see any evidence of that. In my opinion the characters do not have any chemistry between them.

Bishop is played by Australian born actress Teresa Palmer. Although she has appeared in a few movies I have seen, I did not recognize her. So for me she’s pretty much an unknown. Vampire Matthew is played by Matthew Goode who I recall from his role as Ozymandias in “Watchmen” but also appeared in “The Good Wife” and “Downton Abbey“. Bishop’s mother is played by Alex Kingston who is most famous as River Song the wife of Doctor Who. She only appeared briefly in the first episode so even though I’m a fan of hers, she doesn’t play a big enough part to keep me watching.

I found nothing particularly interesting about the entire first episode. I’ve seen glowing reviews on IMDb but I don’t get it. As I said previously there is little or no chemistry between the main characters. The idea of some mysterious manuscript that holds the key to everything just didn’t excite me. It’s not funny. It’s not dramatic. It’s not romantic. There is little or no action. I suppose if you stuck with it you might get interested in the characters but a show has to grab me in the opening episode if I want to invest in it and this one just didn’t. I’m giving it a strong rating of “skip it”.

We’ve seen many books, films, and TV series in which teens or young adults are put in life or death situations sometimes requiring these young people to use deadly force. Of course we have “The Hunger Games“, “Maze Runner“, and “Divergent” books and films that fit this category. On television we have “The 100” and to a lesser extent “Marvel’s Runaways” just to name a few. With the exception of Runaways all of these are in a futuristic dystopia or post-apocalyptic setting in which everyone faces life-and-death situations and the teens have no choice but to occasionally use deadly force just to survive.

However the new series “Deadly Class” from Syfy Channel is set more or less in the real world of 1980s US. This is not really science fiction or fantasy at all. It is based on a graphic novel by Wesley Craig. Our main character is Marcus Lopez. He’s a homeless teenager who escaped from a boys facility after a fire which killed most of the other residents. He gets recruited into a private high school called Kings Dominion Academy which is an underground school for assassins. Various gangsters, yakuza, and other nefarious types send their children to the school to learn “deadly arts”. He gets recruited because it is mistakenly believed that he murdered the other residents thus making him an experienced killer.

The Academy is run by a mysterious Oriental character named Master Lin whose family founded the organization to help poor people fight against the establishment. It’s based on the premise that some people just deserve to die. Marcus decides to go ahead and join to get off the street and perhaps learn skills so he can seek revenge against Pres. Ronald Reagan whom he blames for the death of his parents. Reagan cut funding for mental health programs releasing thousands of mentally ill patients onto the streets. A crazy woman jumped off a building, landed on his parents, and killed them.

In some ways the Academy sort of reminds you as a very dark and dangerous Hogwarts if the only class they taught was a dark arts class. However it wasn’t “defense against the dark arts” rather it was dark arts itself. Except remember these aren’t wizards. This isn’t sci-fi or fantasy. Despite being based on a comic book (excuse me graphic novel) there are no superheroes or supernatural elements. This is allegedly the real world.

When we look at terrific events of the dystopian young adult franchises, we can tend to set aside a bit our revulsion of kids killing kids even in something as dark as “The Hunger Games” because it’s the corrupt evil adults who are forcing the kids into the situation. However in this series, there seems to be no redeeming value to the entire situation except for the standard rationalization that they are only killing really bad people.

The thing that makes the dystopian franchises palatable apart from the necessity of the circumstance is that the storylines and the characters are compelling. We can’t say any of that about “Deadly Class”. The characters aren’t memorable. The situations aren’t compelling. Their struggles with moral dilemmas seem completely contrived even more that in the dystopian franchises. It seems as though we’re telling a story about killer kids just for the shock value of it. If there’s some deeper metaphorical meaning behind the entire concept, it is lost on me. If we want to tell a coming-of-age story about how difficult it is to grow up as a teenager these days in a violent world, then just tell the real story and don’t contrive some bizarre teenage academy for assassins.

I’ve not bothered to detail any of the characters beyond the main one or even tell you the actors names because none of them are anybody you’ve ever heard of and none of them are very interesting characters to begin with.

By the way if you’re looking for action in this series you’re going to be disappointed as well. Although they are supposedly being trained as killers, you’re not going to see spectacular fight sequences or action set pieces like you might see in a show like “The Badlands”. That’s why I said in the title that the show is neither deadly nor classy.

I waited until I had seen two full episodes before the writing this review because I wanted to see if there was some deeper meaning or some redeeming quality to the entire series but I haven’t discovered it yet. I gave this one every opportunity but in the end I give up and I’m giving it a very strong recommendation of “skip it“.

The first new sitcom of the winter season is “Fam” on CBS. The premise is Clem is a young woman who is recently engaged to her adoring fiancé Nick. Just as they begin to make wedding plans her ne’er-do-well out of control 16-year-old half-sister Shannon shows up and moves in with her. Clam is white and Nick is African-American but race is never brought up the entire first episode. So this isn’t “blackish” or “The Neighborhood“.

Clem is played by Nina Dobev who was most recently been seen in “The Vampire Diaries“. Her fiancé Nick is played by Tone Bell who appeared on one season of the sitcom “Whitney” but was most recently seen in “Disjointed“. The sister played by Odessa Adlon recently seen in “Nashville“. Her quirky character is the only bright spot in this otherwise ordinary sitcom. We also get a few laughs from Clem and Shannon’s father played by Gary Cole recently seen in “Chicago Fire” and as Christine Baranski’s husband on “The Good Fight“. He is a stereotypical bad father who makes all sorts of lame excuses for how he was never there when the girls were growing up. He brings a couple of laughs here and there.

The opening plot is full of sitcom clichés. The girls had told everyone that their father is dead because he’s been such an ass. Of course he shows up and spoils the lie. Also Nick accidentally eats some pot laced nuts right before a family gathering.

The laugh track is obviously fake and overdone as is usual for a new sitcom.

If you have read any of my other sitcom reviews you know that my ultimate test of any comedy is “Did it make me laugh?” I have to admit I did get a couple of chuckles out of the teenage girl but for the most part there’s nothing special about this. If you’re desperate to pick up a new sitcom on your schedule you might give it a try and see if it grows on you. But for me and my household, I’m rating this one a mild “Skip It“. Nothing special here. Move along.

From films like “Oh, God” to “Bruce Almighty” and their sequels to TV shows such as “Touched by an Angel” to “Joan of Arcadia” to “Saving Grace” to the recently canceled “Kevin (Probably) Saves the World” the idea that someone is called by God to do special things in the world has pretty much been done in film and TV for many years. CBS’s new comedy/drama “God Friended Me” attempts to update the genre to the social media era we currently live in. I’m not sure there’s much left to explore in this premise.

I liked Joan, Grace, and Kevin but not because I was inspired by the idea that God or angels or other supernatural beings were encouraging them to make a difference in someone’s life. And as a person who considers himself a man of faith I’m not turned off by the religious theme. But I’ve only washed these shows because the characters were compelling and the scenarios were interesting or humorous apart from the godly guidance aspect of the shows.

Unfortunately I can’t say the same for “God Friended Me”. Our hero Miles Finer is an atheist podcaster who is this son of a preacher. He lost his faith when his mother was cured of cancer (thanks to his prayers) but then was soon after killed in a car accident. He is played by Brandon Michael Hall. While trying to promote his podcast promoting the idea that there is no God, he receives a Facebook friend request from none other than God. After declining the request several times he finally accepts it and gets a friend suggestion from God for a man named John Dove. He then immediately bumps into him on the street. Out of curiosity he follows him into the subway and ends up saving him from killing himself when John attempts to jump in front of the train.

Thinking that the whole thing is a hoax he turns to his friend Rakesh to help him track down this bogus “God” account. Meanwhile another friend suggestion from God leads him to a reporter named Cara Bloom played by Violett Beane. She is most noted for her role as Jesse Wells speedster resident of Earth-2 on “The Flash“. Together they try to explore who is pulling this presumed hoax on him. Along the way they uncover secrets to her past that connect the two of them.

There is nothing inspired or original about the entire experience. If you have seen any of these other similar shows then the story is totally predictable. There is a sort of heartwarming conclusion to everything as you might expect including his reconciliation with his estranged preacher father played by Joe Morton. Morton most recently played bad guy Rowen “Command” Pope on “Scandal“. It’s uncertain whether or not he will be a major character in the show or not but on the surface it looks like a waste of his talents compared to the meaty part he had in “Scandal”.

With the cancellation of “Kevin (Probably) Saves the World” after one season if you are hankering for this particular genre I suppose it might appeal to you. But somehow this one just doesn’t do it for me. Out of deference to people who might like it I will give it a “Could Be Watchable” but overall for me it’s a “Skip It“.