Stars on Screen
Family funnies: There are a lot of family comedies on television, but there isn’t another one quite like “Life in Pieces.”The CBS sitcom welcomes back the Short family for a third season on Thursday, Nov. 2, with a lot of love, laughs and charm as the series keeps its unconventional format.
You see, “Life in Pieces” isn’t just an empty title for the show; it also describes its format, which is far from typical. Unlike a more traditional sitcom, which typically has a main plot thread for each episode with maybe one or two side stories unfolding, “Life in Pieces” somehow manages to pack four short stories into each halfhour episode.
That’s one short story for each of the four branches of the Short family. At the head of the clan are Joan (Dianne Wiest, “Law & Order”) and John (James Brolin, “Catch Me If You Can,” 2002), a pair of loving parents and grandparents who would do anything for their family.Their youngest child is Greg (Colin Hanks, “Fargo”), who struggles with his wife Jen (Zoe ListerJones, “Band Aid,” 2017) to find a good work-life balance.Their eldest is Heather (Betsy Brandt, “Breaking Bad”), who lives with her husband, Tim (Dan Bakkedahl, “Veep”), and their three kids, while the middle child, Matt (“Thomas Sadoski, “The Newsroom”), has finally married his true love.
It’s not such an unconventional setup — three adult siblings raising their families while also dealing with their own parents — but it’s that short story format that really sets “Life in Pieces” apart. Telling four different stories in each episode, with each focusing on a different part of the Short family, gives the show a unique pace when compared to other sitcoms, making this a special show with its own brand of humor.
Catch up with the Short family — all four branches of it — when “Life in Pieces” returns for a third season on Thursday, Nov. 2, on CBS.
Restaurant revisions: The restaurant business can be brutal, and no one knows that better than Gordon Ramsay.The globally acclaimed chef and TV star of the hits “MasterChef” and “Hell’s Kitchen” is a titan in the culinary world, and his home on American television is expanding its relationship with him.
Fox has ordered “Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell & Back,” an unscripted eight-episode series that’s cut from a similar cloth as “Kitchen Nightmares,” Ramsay’s restaurant-rescue series that concluded in 2014.
In “Hell & Back,” Ramsay will be visiting struggling restaurants across the country and using his expertise to build a strong foundation for the businesses, giving owners the tools that they need to turn their crummy Yelp reviews into glowing ones. But unlike in “Kitchen Nightmares,” where Ramsay had a whole week to assess a restaurant, identify its problems,
come up with a plan for improvement and then implement his changes, in the new series, he’ll have to do all of that in just 24 hours. That’s a tall order, even for one of the planet’s foremost restaurateurs. Luckily, Ramsay’s bringing a secret weapon: a 70foot-long truck that transforms into a state-of-the art mobile kitchen. Called Hell on Wheels, the kitchen is the perfect place for the chef to revamp the restaurant’s menu, retrain its staff and educate its owners.
And those aren’t the only changes that Ramsay will be making. He’ll do whatever it takes to help a restaurant succeed, whether that means reinterviewing its staff to figure out who needs to go, or even gutting the dining room and revamping its decor.
“Kitchen Nightmares” proved that chef Gordon Ramsay has what it takes to turn a struggling business around — the question here is whether he can do it in only 24 hours. “Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell & Back” is in early production at Fox.
Mid-season emergency: The new TV season has barely even started, but the networks are already lining up new shows that are scheduled to premiere mid-season. Case in point: Fox’s
“9-1-1,” which has no firm release date as of yet but which should hit screens sometime in the new year.
The procedural follows a group of first responders dealing with shocking situations while trying to balance their personal lives with their professional ones. Not much more is known about the series as of yet, except for the stars who are lined up to be part of it.
Angela Bassett (“American Horror Story”) and Peter Krause (“Parenthood”) have boarded the drama in asyet-unnamed roles, along with “Nashville” star Connie Britton, in her first regular role since her five-season run in that drama. Details about the characters being played by the three actors are still being kept under wraps.
Shows that premiere mid-season are typically used to fill the time-slots left vacant by canceled series — typically freshman ones with such poor ratings they don’t even survive a single season. With 13 episodes on order, Fox looks to be betting on
“9-1-1” being a strong replacement for an underperformer.