HANK

HANK (2009 ABC TV show.) Director: James Burrows.

Kelsey Grammer stars in this new sitcom in which he plays a New York City executive who got laid off due to the economy and has moved back to Virginia with his wife and two children. One can't expect Grammer to play Frasier for the rest of his life, but one can't help but compare every other sitcom the actor does to that jewel he did a few years ago. Grammer is at his best playing sophisticated characters, not middle-class family men, and some of those old Frasier vaguely epicene mannerisms keep creeping in. Grammer is fine in Hank -- in fact, with all due respect to the other actors, he's basically the whole show. One pleasant enough episode had him encouraging his teenage daughter to go to work, and he of the big mouth wound up beside her selling ice cream in a shop with an obnoxious manager. Still, this had none of the bite or wit of the best -- or even the least -- of the Frasier episodes. I like Grammer but I can't see Hank sticking around for long. Someone should put Grammer in a more intelligent and sophisticated program -- Hank isn't it.

Verdict: Hurry up or this will be gone. **/2.