CBS (Wed., Sept. 18, 8 p.m. ET)
B
There's a place on TV for a silly, even stupid show: The Dukes of Hazzard, F Troop, Sonny and Cher. Stir Crazy fills that slot this season with an utter lack of seriousness or socially redeeming value. All the show tries to be is fun. And it succeeds. This Stir Crazy is an open-ended remake of the 1980 Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder movie, but it doesn't mimic that success. The stars here, Larry Riley and Joseph Guzaldo, are unknowns who try to make the parts their own. The situation that lands them in jail, wrongly accused and tried and sentenced to 132 years, is new. The writing, by Bruce Jay (The Lonely Guy's Book of Life) Friedman, is inventive and so's the slapstick. So it's not Masterpiece Theatre. So fine. At least Stir Crazy is creative in its stupidity. Just one complaint: In the pilot—which is not the first Stir Crazy you'll see—Polly (Flo) Holliday plays a superbly snappy, snide cop ("I hate old people.... I hate Disney World.... And I hate Mary Lou Retton"). Unfortunately she's only in the pilot, not the series.
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