"Road" to nowhere

It's not an easy thing to mix good TV drama with the right amount of endearing, yet goofy comedy. The writers of October Road must know that, because they failed. What they got was a show that can't decide how dramatic it wants to be.

The story is centered around Nick (Brian Greenberg), a writer in his late 20s who comes home after hitting it big with a book based loosely on his home town and friends. No one's really mad about the book, though. It's the abandonment -- that he didn't come back after a backpacking trip in Europe -- that the people closest to him can't stand.

I shudder to compare the show to Ed, as I've been told it has been. Ed was genius beyond its years and its viewers. October will get that label only because it's using the premise of a successful main character coming home and reconnecting with a life left behind.

The shows, though, are exact opposites. Nick doesn't want to go home, and honestly, no one in their right mind would stay considering the heaps of animosity he faces -- but of course there's a game-changing plot point that I'll save in case you actually care to watch the show. It's not much of a surprise though.

The show's biggest failure is that you won't really care about Nick, or any of the other characters you meet in the pilot episode. There's little room for development in any of them, and very little in the way of obstacles for them to overcome. The one shining participant is Sam (Slade Pierce), son of Nick's ex girlfriend (Laura Prepon), who's the only character to show any amount of genuine wit or smarts.

It's better than some of the other 10 p.m.-type dramas ABC has (Brothers and Sisters, Men in Trees), but it's nothing remarkable... nothing you haven't seen before.

NO, it has nothing to do with Kevin Bacon

If you read the blog at all, then you know how I feel about characters and how important they are to a show. Well, good news from ABC: Six Degrees will return with original episodes in a new time slot, 9 p.m. Fridays, after what is now a Grey's Anatomy rerun every week. That's, I believe, the same lead-in it had previously... when it didn't do wonderfully. The network said it will return March 23. The show is exec-produced by Lost/Alias genius J.J. Abrams.

The show focuses on how a group of people in New York City interact and affect each others' lives, whether knowingly or unknowingly -- among them the single mom whose husband, a journalist, was killed in Iraq (Hope Davis); the limo driver who's just started his own service but can't shake his past as a gang banger (Dorian Missick); and the brilliant photographer fresh off a bender (Campbell Scott) who's fighting his principles to work for an ad agency and fighting his ex-wife to see his son.

It's a show about personal demons and how these people are doing their damnedest to beat them. There's no explosions and there's only been one shooting -- it's not an action-filled show, but it's a TV drama that's not too mushy or skewed toward women (Men in Trees, Brothers & Sisters).

The network also announced the premiere of October Road, which will take over Men in Trees' time slot at 10 p.m. Thursdays starting March 15. According to the release, "October Road centers on the young, popular author, Nick Garrett, who is at a crossroads in his life. To get over his writer's block, he goes back to his hometown and must now face the family and friends he has avoided for the past ten years. Once back home on October Road, he quickly discovers that the circle of friends whose teenage lives he wrote about have trouble forgiving him for leaving them behind, and that his ex-girlfriend, Hannah Daniels, may have had his child."

If I got screener copies from the nets I'd give you more insight... but alas, I'm stuck with press releases.