The best thing that can be said about Hank is that it's a lot like CBS' The Ellen Show. That sitcom was Ellen DeGeneres' follow up to ABC's Ellen. It wasn't a bad show and, along with Ellen, it featured the talented Cloris Leachman and Emily Rutherfurd. But it just didn't click. Many times it came close, many times it almost made it, but it never got there.
How did Kelsey end up where he is?
The premise didn't help. Does America really want to see a big Wall Street type brought down and struggle while they bulk of Americans are struggling in the economy? For some, laughing at the loss of income might seem like courting bad luck. And that's before you get to the fact that having started with that ugly premise, the show is then unable to commit to it.
Hank (Grammer) and Tilly Pryor (Melinda McGraw) are supposed to have gone from riches to rags but try to find any evidence of that in anything the writers assign to Tilly. For someone who's supposedly gone from the high life to a home falling around her and sleeping in a children's bed, Tilly's just a ray of sunshine. A constant ray of sunshine. You keep waiting for the episode where everyone finds out that she's been hoarding Quaaludes since the late seventies. That's really the only explanation for her eternal, beaming smile.
The two have kids, two kids: Maddie and Henry. The actress playing Maddie is 18 which is the minimum a performer has to be for us to critique them but we'll take a pass on both actors and merely note that the writers haven't given them anything to indicate that they've fallen any economic levels.
Most episodes revolve way too much around Grady, Tilly's brother, and that's probably to the further detriment of the show. David Koechner plays the part. He's really not funny, he wasn't funny on Still Standing, he was a bit player on Saturday Night Live, there's nothing in his career to date that indicates he would be funny. But he's really the second lead in the show.
Here's what could have made the role funny: An attractive man. A young attractive man.
Why?
Kelsey's Hank feels he's lost everything. He and Grady are supposed to lock heads. What would be more threatening to Hank than a young man as he's trying to rebuild his life. What would be more threatening to Hank who cracks many jokes (most of them funny) about his age or aging than a younger man?
Grady's supposed to be a threat to Hank and it's as though they decided to ditch Niles on Fraiser and replace him with Jethro Bodine. The show needs a major rewrite. If tomorrow, they could just substitute a younger and attractive actor for Grady the show would improve instantly. And if that's too 'illogical' for them, they should immediately introduce a younger and attractive actor who is Grady and Tilly's brother and then kill off Grady. David Koechner has nothing to offer, he will never have anything to offer. Not because he's a second banana but because he's a bad second banana.
Other things they could consider doing is allowing Maddie to run off with that boyfriend she left in New York and get the character off the show for at least ten episodes. When she comes back, pregnant and unmarried, Hank can do his tongue lashing that lashes everyone including himself. In the meantime, they could use the Maddie-free time to figure out what the other characters want.
See, characters have to want something. But every one on Hank is in a state of flux. It's not just their futures that are in questions, it's their dreams and wants as well. It's amazing that this has happened because they went out of their way to saddle these characters with a story that is never used. We're supposed to think Bernie Maddoff but who wants to see Bernie Maddoff in a standard sitcom?
So we get Grady and Hank going hunting and we get Hank and Maddie going to work at an ice cream shop. And the more you watch, the more you realize how moldy the scripts are, how the situations seem to have been taken from The Lucy Show. You keep waiting for the episode where Hank and Tilly do their own plumbing and end up trapped in a shower filled with water.
The only thing that's currently working in this show is Kelsey Grammer's timing. That may distract some viewers but it doesn't add up to a half-hour show.