September 06, 2012

TV: Ben and Kate (Fox, Tue 8:30)

First episode currently available for preview online; premieres September 25.

Ben and Kate is yet another show about how men are incapable of growing up and accepting adult responsibility. Kate's the little sister who had to grow up fast when she got pregnant; her daughter Maddie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones, less annoyingly precocious than most TV tykes) is now 5. Ben's the big brother who never grew up at all, and has spent the last few years popping in and out of Kate's life, showing up mostly when he's in the middle of a crisis.

The first episode introduces us to this family and their best friends, Ben's pal Tommy (Echo Kellum) and Kate's best friend BJ (Lucy Punch); he's black and she's British, which by Fox standards makes this a very diverse cast. By the end of the pilot, we've established the premise -- Ben moves in to help Kate raise her daughter -- and set up what is clearly going to be a familiar story about a goofy manboy learning responsibility from a child. The cast is appealing enough that they might be able to over the blah-ness of that setup, but I'm not wildly optimistic.

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