I checked out Fox's two new sit-coms and I have to say that the network still seems incapable of getting half hour comedy right. Maybe they sold their soul for "The Simpsons" (and, to a lesser extent, "Married... with Children") but they just don't seem to be able to put it all together. When they do do well, it's something like "Arrested Development" that can't find an audience. Usually though, they just miss the mark which I think they did with both "Raising Hope" and "Running Wilde".

For me, "Wilde" was just a complete miss and I already took it off of the Season Pass. It kind of felt like the Gob Show with a perky yet equally idiotic liberal at his side. "Arrested Development" worked best when it mixed Michael Bluth's attempts at being a normal person with the antics of his obviously abnormal family. "Running Wilde" just doesn't have a core character that you really care about. Keri Russell's daughter in the show is supposed to carry that role but the show isn't about her. I could go on but the bottom line is that the show is just too silly for it's own good.

On the other hand, "Raising Hope" might not be silly enough. I thought the show did have a similar problem as Wilde in that I didn't particularly like the main character but it had some funny moments and seemed to be going along decently. I wasn't a huge fan of "My Name is Earl" so part of the issue might be that Greg Garcia's humor doesn't mix with my sensibilities but what really struck me as awful was when the show tried to get some sort of heart to it. At the end of the pilot, the main character says that he wants to keep the baby because he wants people to look at him differently. I really hope that I just missed the punchline to that because, from what I saw, they wanted that to be an honest-to-God, heartfelt moment and that is an absolutely horrific reason to keep a child. I mean, it's beyond obvious that the main character has no business raising a kid and, if he has any chance, he's going to have to rely on his family who are a bunch of questionable role models (at best). The kid is in a horrible situation and the final decision of "We're going to keep the baby" should have been more of a moment of dark humor - keeping the baby is actually the worst thing for the kid - but instead it tried to be some kind of family bonding moment.

I'm keeping that show on the DVR but I have a feeling that, as I said before, Garcia's brand of TV just isn't my cup of tea. Still, the pilot was decent enough and the supporting cast (including Garrett Dillahunt and Martha Plympton) is great so it might be worth a gander. (Although I don't think I'll ever warm to the main character.)

As for returning shows, I caught the premiere of "Castle" and it didn't disappoint. The look of the show seemed a bit different (and, at times, a bit off) but all of the jokes and character moments were there, Stana Katic looked better than ever (as did Tamala Jones), and it picked up right where it left off.