Call Me Kat

It's difficult to watch this series without the overwhelming feeling that you just want to save Mayim Bialik from this fate. The star is charm personified, knows how to land a joke, and, as many people found out when she did a star-making turn as a young Bette Midler in 1988's Beaches, she sure can sing (and in Call Me Kat, she does). But mired here as she is in the land of hacky sitcom jokes (and inexplicably amused laugh-trackers), her prodigious talent seems like a waste instead of a gift. First and worst: Kat talks to the audience, which we learn in the first moments of the first episode, when Kat does a spit take before welcoming us to the show (the first of two spit takes in 30 seconds, might we add), and then continues to break the fourth wall in asides when she's addressing other characters, to the extent that it's hard to tell at times exactly who she's talking to. 

Second, though the show is absolutely stuffed to the gills with talent (TV stalwarts Leslie Jordan, Swoosie Kurtz, and Cheyenne Jackson as Kat's love interest), the characters are unrealistic: Kurtz's mom is overwhelmingly concerned with her daughter's single status; Jordan is Kat's adorably ironic employee; Jackson is a hunk to swoon over. Finally, the sitcom's premises are so stale as to be practically historic: Kat has two dates in one night; Kat has to pretend Jordan's Phil is her boyfriend to get a plus-one at a fancy occasion. As much talent as there is here both behind and in front of the camera, it's a shame to see it go to waste on a sitcom that might have been fun in the 1990s, but just reads as gimmicky now.