Maggie Lawson ("Psych") in ABC's "Back in the Game"
You so want “Back in the Game” to pitch a better game than it does.
Essentially, it’s a retooled TV version of “Trouble With the Curve,” a wonderful movie with Clint Eastwood as a gruff old baseball lifer and Amy Adams as the daughter who uses the sport to make a tricky reconnection.
For “Back in the Game,” James Caan plays Terry Gannon, a gruff old baseball lifer. Maggie Lawson plays his daughter, also named Terry — a young single mother who could desperately use support and sees baseball as the way to try to coax some of that from her dad.
It’s a good premise. But where both old guys are cranky and frustrating, unable to show they really care, Caan’s character is unpleasant in ways Eastwood’s was not.
While that helps fuel sitcom humor, it narrows the character.
More problematic is the younger Terry.
Viewers can buy the contorted path by which she comes to coach the local “Bad News Bears”-style youth baseball team. But when she sees her father watching a practice, she pours out all her repressed feelings and complaints, a litany that eventually incorporates confessions about her sex life.
In front of the team? Really?
While the scene may have seemed like the ticket to a quick laugh, it makes her a sitcom character, which is less interesting than an actual character.
With Lawson as with Caan, it also underutilizes a good actor.
Most frustrating of all, the show doesn’t need that kind of humor. The same father/daughter points could be made in other, more nuanced ways that would ultimately be funnier.
“Back in the Game” could still become a drama where funny things happen. It shouldn't settle for being just another sitcom.
dhinckley@nydailynews.com
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