Raising Hope

As your resident TV expert, I'm giving you the info on the new Fall TV series that you should know about. After my new show spotlights and TCA coverage, I'm now reviewing the pilots for each show to get you up to speed. Today's offering? Fox comedy Raising Hope.

What it's about: Newcomer Lucas Neff is Jimmy Chance, a young man in his early 20s who impregnates a female criminal after a one-night stand. When she's put in prison, he's left to raise the baby. Along for the ride? His unstable family, which includes Martha Plimpton and Garret Dillahunt as his parents, who didn't necessarily do the greatest job raising him (as evidenced by the fact that he still lives at home . . . and impregnated a female criminal). Cloris Leachman also stars as his great-grandmother, as does Shannon Woodward, who plays a grocery store clerk mildly horrified with Jimmy's fatherly skills — and his eventual love interest.

Where it works: The series is from the same creator of My Name Is Earl, and the humor and aesthetic are largely the same for Raising Hope. If you like irreverent humor — and this show is chock-full of it — you're the audience for the show. I found myself laughing out loud a few times during the pilot, which is always a great sign.

Where it doesn't: The heart that was in My Name Is Earl isn't really present here yet. The bigger issue is that it's obvious that the edgy baby jokes will begin to get tired — the show needs to prove that it can find comedy from more than just infant-in-danger scenarios.

Am I hooked? The way I feel about this show is similar to the way Woodward's character, Sabrina, feels about the Chance family: concerned, but willing to stick it out to see if something good will come out of it.

To see some photos and a preview, just read more

Fox had a lively day yesterday at the Summer TCA with panels for its shows new and old — Glee had a reverent session, while Will Arnett kept it lively on the Running Wilde panel. But there was more to Fox's press day than that — check out the details on a couple other new series, as well as some bits about the new judging panel for American Idol.

• New drama Lone Star seemed to build buzz during its panel — the series is centered on a boyish con-man, played by newcomer James Wolk, who might be as much of a ladykiller as his character. When asked if he believed if it's possible to be in love with two women at once, he cracked, "I say five."
• Lone Star creator Kyle Killen says he pitched the Texas-set show as "Dallas without the cheese" and isn't worried about people being able to sympathize with its con-man lead. Of Wolk's character, he says that "by humanizing that person, you end up getting behind them."
• The comedy Raising Hope has the distinction of being the panel that was completely taken over by its star Cloris Leachman. She plays a great-grandmother on the irreverent series, about a young man who becomes a single father and raises the baby with his family, but Leachman was as eccentric on stage as the woman she plays on TV. In the span of 45 minutes, she ordered reporters to stand when they asked a question, moved her chair during the panel, and dropped the F bomb a couple of times. If this is what we can look forward to on the show, count me in.

To hear what the Fox execs had to say about changes for Idol, just read more

Maybe you just got used to most of your regular TV shows being on Summer hiatus, but I'm taking this time to look ahead to the Fall season and the spate of new series that come with it. We've checked out a a few of the offerings, and today I want to get you up to speed on the Fox comedy Raising Hope.

• Who's in it: Newcomer Lucas Neff is the main character, while Martha Plimpton, Cloris Leachman, and No Country For Old Men's Garrett Dillahunt also star. Bijou Phillips pops up in the pilot.
• What it's about? Twenty-something Jimmy accidentally impregnates a convict, and everyone in his down-on-their-luck family helps to raise the baby.
• Why it caught my attention: Martha Plimpton's character is a grandma! She most memorably played a rebellious teen in 1989's Parenthood, so to see her as a grandmother (albeit a young one) kind of blows my mind.
• Show most likely to: Be so wrong it's right.

To watch a preview clip of Raising Hope, just read more