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Crowded - Sundays at 9:30PM ET/PT on NBC
Special Premiere Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 10:00PM & 10:30PM ET/PT, then Sunday, March 20 at 9:30PM ET/PT

by Vincent

Crowded is a timely comedy that proves life is crazy with a full house, especially the second time around. After 20 years of parenting, empty nesters Mike and Martina are finally reclaiming their wild side. But when both of their two grown unexpectedly move back in and Mike's parents scratch their plans to spend their golden years in Florida, their roost is full again.

Cast Details:

Miranda Cosgrove as Shea Moore
Carrie Preston as Martina Moore
Stacy Keach as Bob Moore
Carlease Burke as Alice Moore
Mia Serafino as Stella Moore
Patrick Warburton as Mike Moore

Miranda Cosgrove (Shea) is an actress and singer best known for her work in Nickelodeon sitcoms Drake & Josh and iCarly. She has also appeared on Smallville, Grounded for Life, and The Good Wife, and the hit comedy film School of Rock.

Carrie Preston (Martina) is an actress known for her roles on the hit shows True Blood and Person of Interest, opposite husband Michael Emerson. She has also appeared on Getting On, The Good Wife, The Following, and Royal Pains.

Stacy Keach (Bob) is a comic actor known for his role on the popular SiriusXM radio show The Opie and Anthony Show. He also has a long and distinguished career in television and film, including roles in shows such as Titus, ER, Prison Break, and 30 Rock.

Carlease Burke (Alice) is an actress known for her roles in shows such as Key & Peele, Dads, NCIS, and Switched at Birth.

Mia Serafino (Stella) is an actress who has appeared on shows such as Shameless, NCIS: Los Angeles, Undateable, and Scorpion.

Patrick Warburton (Mike) is known for his role as David Puddy on Seinfeld, and other sitcoms like The Tick, Rules of Engagement, NewsRadio and Less than Perfect. He has also done extensive voice work on animated shows such as Family Guy, Archer, and The Venture Brothers.

Pilot Plot:

We have watched the first two episodes for review and also another episode airing later in the season.

"Pilot" (Airs Tuesday, March 15 at 10:00PM ET)

Like millions of millennials, Mike and Martina's two daughters back home after college and they all have to deal with the new reality.

"Present Tense" (Airs Tuesday, March 15 at 10:30PM ET)

Mike and Martina haven't had sex since the girls moved back in and they're not sure why. Each tries to spice things up in their own way. Meanwhile, Stella coaches Shea on how to snag boys with a dating app.

"Daughter" (tentatively Airs Sunday, May 8 at 9:30PM ET)

TBD

Analysis:

It's no secret that, creatively speaking, the multi-camera sitcom has fallen upon some hard times. For much of the 2000s and early 2010s, the format was marred by lazy writing, an over-reliance on clichés, and a warmed over feeling that paled in comparison to the creatively exciting single-cams dominating the airwaves at the time. But over the past few years, the multi-cam sitcom has been experiencing a quiet quality renaissance. The Carmichael Show (Crowded's timeslot companion) has used the format to throwback to its golden age, focusing on strong characters and a deft understanding of political issues not unlike classic Norman Lear sitcoms. And Mom on CBS has shed its initial Two and a Half Men-esque vibe and become a surprisingly strong character study of what it's like to live in a world when you're recovering from an addiction. With these shows, it seems reasonable to ask: could there be a renaissance of respect for the old multi-camera sitcom? Unfortunately, Crowded, despite a promising cast, is a multi-cam that doesn't seem interested in that renaissance. As a mostly generic bore that relies on tired clichés and obvious punchlines for its humor, it's an unwelcome reminder of how the multi-camera sitcom has fallen so hard from grace over the past 15 years. Crowded's entire premise basically comes down to "millennials are living with their parents because they're lazy and their parents babied them," which is a narrative that has been trite and outdated pretty much from the moment it began circulating. Of course, a show can overcome a bad premise if the writing and characters are strong enough to hold up the fort – all you need to do is look at a show like Cougar Town or New Girl to see how a questionable premise can turn into a great show if all of the other elements are there.

But Crowded's characters never manage to feel like anything more than archetypes. The girls, despite valiant efforts by Cosgrove and Serafino, have exactly one joke to their personas and, in the three episodes I watched, never manage to gain any other traits that make them feel like actual human beings rather than just ideas. The parents fare a little better, but they're still not much more than exactly what you would expect a married couple on this kind of show to be – did you guess that the mother is the rock of the family who struggles to keep it together? You're right! Did you guess that the father tries to bury his emotions and just wants to act manly and have sex with his wife? You got it again! It doesn't speak much to the show when a guest character played by Betty White is the only character I ever had any desire to learn more about. (White is basically playing the stereotypical 'grandma who says things a grandma shouldn't' role she's been playing non-stop for the past ten years, but she plays it well, and she actually gets a little more shading in her one episode than any of the main cast got in three.) If the show has one thing going for it, it's that by the third episode I watched, there were some actual strong punchlines that got some chuckles out of me. Unfortunately, an occasional funny line is not really enough to save a show that's otherwise a generic disaster all-around. I don't see much hope in Crowded, which is a shame because the cast is strong and the joke writing isn't even so bad. But it's going to take a lot of work to get this to be anything more than another multi-camera sitcom that totally misses the mark.

Conclusion:

Crowded is a trite, boring sitcom that feels mass-produced from the same soulless entity that has given us so many painfully bad multi-camera sitcoms over the past 15 years. The format has proven recently that it has some life left in it, demonstrated by the show that airs just a half-hour before this one on the same network. But Crowded, with its lazy premise, paper-thin characters and inconsistent writing, is more of a sign of what the format is trying to leave behind than where it's (hopefully) headed. It would be nice if Crowded could figure itself out, because the jokes are sometimes there and it's got an all-around solid cast, but given how painfully it started out, I don't hold out a lot of hope that it'll get better.

Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):

Watchability: 2/5
Funniness: 2/5
Overall: 2/5

Discuss the show after you watch it on Tuesday, March 15, 2016 at 10:00PM & 10:30PM ET/PT on our message board.

Related Links:

NBC.com Official Site

TV.com

epguides.com

Internet Movie Database

Wikipedia

Crowded Photo Gallery

Preview:

The CW has picked up and renewed many of the current batch of programming. Returning in 2016-17 are: Arrow, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, iZombie, Jane The Virgin, The Originals, Reign, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries and The 100. They will continue their strategy of more proven original series year-round, including Fall 2016, midseason 2017 and summer 2017. Specific premiere dates for each series will be announced at a later time. The CW still hasn't given a status on last summer's comedy Significant Mother starring Krista Allen. New series Containment will premiere April 19 and the final season of Beauty & the Beast starts June 2.

NBC has announced the premiere dates of three new midseason scripted series, plus the anticipated return of its summer hit comedy, The Carmichael Show. The launch strategy includes previews in proximity to The Voice for The Carmichael Show, Crowded, Heartbeat and Little Big Shots, the previously announced reality series about extraordinary kids hosted by Steve Harvey, who executive produces with Ellen DeGeneres. First up, sitcom The Carmichael Show, will have a preview episode Tuesday, March 8, 10:30pm before making its regular night & time premiere on Sunday, March 13, at 9pm with back-to-back episodes for week one. The March 8 preview episode of The Carmichael Show at 10:30pm will immediately follow a half-hour preview of Little Big Shots, which will be preceded by a two-hour episode of The Voice. The Steve Harvey series will air Sundays at 8pm into The Carmichael Show beginning March 13. The Carmichael Show will also have a Bill Cosby-themed episode this season that will likely be talked about everywhere after it airs.

Then two preview episodes of new sitcom Crowded will air Tuesday, March 15 from 10-11pm following The Voice, before moving to its regular night and time on Sunday, March 20 at 9:30pm following The Carmichael Show. From the executive producers of Hot in Cleveland and Grimm comes this very timely comedy that proves life is crazy with a full house, especially the second time around. After 20 years of parenting, empty nesters Mike (Patrick Warburton, Seinfeld) and Martina (Carrie Preston, True Blood) are finally reclaiming their wild side. But when both of their two grown daughters (Miranda Cosgrove, iCarly and Mia Serafino, Shameless) unexpectedly move back in and Mike's parents (Stacy Keach, NCIS: New Orleans and Carlease Burke, Switched at Birth) scratch their plans to spend their golden years in Florida, their roost is full again.

Next up, new drama Heartbeat will have a preview episode on Tuesday, March 22 at 9pm following The Voice, before moving to its regular night and time starting the next night on Wednesday, March 23 at 8pm. The drama is a character-driven medical series that follows the professional and personal life of world-renowned heart transplant surgeon Dr. Alex Panttiere (Melissa George, The Slap). There is nothing conventional about Dr. Panttiere, who is as cutting edge and unorthodox in the OR as she is with the two men in her life. Her approach to medicine is without boundaries, as is her approach to everything else in her world. Between Dr. Panttiere's hectic hospital life where she is caught between two brilliant but stubborn surgeons (Dave Annable and Don Hany) and her household of two kids and a gay rock star ex-husband (Joshua Leonard), Alex is constantly striving to overcome numerous daily obstacles and be the best mother and doctor possible. Jamie Kennedy, D.L. Hughley, Shelley Con, Maya Erskine, Joshua Leonard and JLouis Mills also star.

And finally, new drama Game of Silence will launch on Thursday, April 7 at 10pm following The Blacklist after the season of Shades of Blue ends. Jackson Brooks (David Lyons, Revolution) is a successful attorney who seems to have it all. He's engaged to a wonderful woman who happens to be his boss, Marina (Claire Van Der Boom, Hawaii Five-O), and he's on the fast track to becoming partner at his firm, but his world is turned upside down when his long-lost childhood friends unexpectedly reappear after 25 years. Jackson, Gil Harris (Michael Raymond James, True Blood) and Shawn Cook (Larenz Tate, Rush) always stuck together, like brothers. They spent their boyhood summers in the small town of Brennan, Texas, swimming in the quarry, shooting bottle rockets and doing everything they could to mine the fun out of small-town life. But their idyllic world turned chaotic one fateful summer afternoon when a well-intentioned and heroic attempt to save their friend Jessie (Bre Blair, Last Vegas) from her alcoholic mother ultimately cost the 13-year-old boys nine months at Quitman Youth Detention Facility where their lives were changed forever.

AMC announced that David Schwimmer (American Crime Story, Band of Brothers, Friends) and Jim Sturgess (21, Across the Universe, Cloud Atlas) will star in the network's upcoming original series Feed the Beast. A co-production between AMC Studios and Lionsgate, based on the Danish series Bankerot, the series will be adapted by writer/showrunner Clyde Phillips (Dexter, Nurse Jackie), who also serves as executive producer. Feed the Beast is a drama about two best friends, Tommy Moran (Schwimmer), and Dion Patras (Sturgess) who take one last shot at their dream of opening a restaurant. Production will begin in New York City in February 2016 and the 10 one-hour episodes are set to premiere in May 2016. The drama tells the story of Tommy (Schwimmer) and Dion (Sturgess) who are like brothers. With all the love - and all the complications - that comes with it. Dion can't stay out of trouble. Tommy can't move past it. For two friends on the brink of losing everything, a dusty pipe dream of opening up an upscale restaurant in their hometown of the Bronx is all they have left to turn their lives around. They push each other to follow through on their dreams, welcome love into their lives, and overcome their demons. They also betray, backstab, manipulate and coerce each other into the most dangerous situations imaginable. For Tommy, a successful haute Hellenic restaurant is his means to give his son a life he never had. For Dion, this venture is a perfect opportunity to secretly repay his debt to the Mob. Together, they take on the insanity of the New York restaurant world, and navigate its underbelly of petty criminals, corrupt officials and violent mobsters. With the vig running, there's more than food, wine and fresh starts on the line. One wrong move and people get chopped.

The casts of several of the most iconic comedy series of all time will be participating in NBC's special Must See TV: A Tribute to James Burrows, which will air Sunday, Feb. 21 from 9-11 p.m. ET/PT. Burrows is recognized as TV's most accomplished sitcom director. Burrows made his TV sitcom directing debut with a 1974 episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He is probably best known for his work on Taxi, Cheers, Frasier and Will & Grace, which collectively earned him 10 Emmy Awards and four DGA Awards. He directed the pilots for all four series as well as for such other long-running comedies as Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and Mike & Molly. The Feb. 21 special will celebrate Burrows' 1,000th episode with his new NBC comedy Crowded, in which he also serves as an executive producer.

Scheduled to be in attendance will be the casts of the following shows. Others may also be added.

· Cheers - Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Bebe Neuwirth, Rhea Perlman, John Ratzenberger, George Wendt (Kirstie Alley, Woody Harrelson in pre-taped segments)
· Friends - Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer (Matthew Perry in pre-taped segment)
· Frasier - Peri Gilpin, Jane Leeves, David Hyde Pierce (Kelsey Grammer in pre-taped segment)
· Will & Grace - Sean Hayes, Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Megan Mullally
· Taxi - Tony Danza, Danny DeVito, Marilu Henner, Judd Hirsch, Carol Kane, Christopher Lloyd
· The Big Bang Theory - Kaley Cuoco, Johnny Galecki, Simon Helberg, Jim Parsons
· Wings - Tony Shalhoub, Steven Weber
· Mike & Molly - Billy Gardell, Melissa McCarthy, Katy Mixon, Nyambi Nyambi, Reno Wilson
· Two and a Half Men - Jon Cryer, Charlie Sheen
· Crowded - Carlease Burke, Stacy Keach, Carrie Preston, Mia Serafino, Patrick Warburton

Others in attendance include JB Smoove, Jason Bateman, Valerie Bertinelli, Kate Flannery and Will Arnett. Bob Newhart will participate in a pre-taped segment.

227 is headed to Centric with a huge marathon event this weekend! This comedy starring Marla Gibbs, Regina King, and Jackée Harry follows a nosy Washington D.C. housewife, Mary Jenkins, who can't stop dishing the 'T' and meddling in the lives of her fellow inner city apartment building residents. The hit '80s sitcom will premiere on Centric on Saturday, January 23 at 11pm and will run through 5:30pm on Monday, January 25! That's a whole lotta episodes, child! The series will then air weekdays from 3-6pm beginning on Tuesday, Jan. 26. Then on Friday, Jan. 29, Centric will have a Bernie Mac launch marathon as the sitcom is back and will air a marathon from 10am-9pm and some weekend blocks that weekend as well, such as Saturday, Jan. 30 from 12pm-8pm. Bernie will then air weekdays from 10am-12:30pm beginning on Monday, Feb. 1. Family Matters will remain from 12:30pm-3pm. As we mentioned, 227 will air 3-6pm. Steve Harvey Show will be off the schedule come Feb. 1. Both new additions already air on sister network MTV2.