NBC (Mondays, 8 p.m. ET)
C-
No matter what show he's on, Jack Klugman delivers every line with the same bulged-temple intensity, whether it's a neatness joke on The Odd Couple, an autopsy report on Quincy or a stale old gag on You Again. Klugman is always good TV. But his new show isn't. The plot, copied from a British sitcom, has Jack living alone ever since his wife and kid deserted him. Suddenly the kid, John (General Hospital) Stamos, returns to live with Dad. In the first episode, Jack meddles in the kid's romance with a punk girl. In the second, the kid meddles in Dad's affair with a young woman from a filling station. "I give him gas," the young woman says. "Oh," says the son, "you work in a restaurant?" Yuk. Then the grease monkette says to Jack: "I know you've got a few miles on your speedometer. But you've got your original body work and a cute little bumper." Yukky. Believe it or not, Klugman does get an occasional good line. But too occasional.
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