TNT
Series Premiere: 7 December
Mondays @ 10p/9c

Seems like everything is happening 10 years later than it did when our parents marched through the world: marriage, babies, mid-life meltdowns. In 1987, ‘thirtysomething‘ premiered on ABC and a generation of Americans saw their reflection once a week on television. Apparently, those magic changes will now take place in our late forties. TNT’s newest drama, ‘Men of a Certain Age‘ (created by Ray Romano and Mike Royce) is described as a show about men entering “life’s second act,” which is just weird. You think it’d be their third act, but maybe that sounds too dismal on a press release.

Romano, Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher star as three chums who are each in their own hot mess (well, except for Bakula, who gets to play the swell ladies’ man who wears a lot of sleeveless shirts). Romano is the guy just separated from his wife with a gambling problem and two kids to raise and Braugher plays a man trapped in his job at his father’s car dealership (talk about depressing), and Bakula is…well, sleeveless about covers it.

It’s a very quiet show, and bit more real than I usually like for my evening stories, but as the first few episodes prove, it’s going to be chock full of acute observations about those years when everything seems to fall apart and we need to use more creams than we used to, work harder to keep our bodies in shape and struggle with being a parent, a child and sometimes a guy back on the market for the first time in decades. While ‘Men of a Certain Age’ may not be appointment television, it’s worth a look for it’s writing and the honesty with which these three leading men dive into their respective characters.