TV review: ‘The Grinder’ gets off to a pleasant start

The hilarious new Fox comedy The Grinder is about two brothers – Dean (Rob Lowe), a spotlight-grabbing actor who plays TV’s most popular lawyer, and Stewart (Fred Savage), a real-life, small-town attorney who has yet to find his spotlight. He’s so identified with the role that everyone calls him The Grinder, including folks in his Boise hometown where he has gone to sort out his life.

“I love what I do. I do”.

Beyond casting Lowe, “The Grinder” is primarily built around that familiar joke that he’s not a lawyer but plays one on TV. It’s a midlife-crisis story that plays its ace card by the end of the pilot (the show’s official Twitter account already declared “There may be hope for Jimmy Martino” over an image of him diapering a baby) and offers few other virtues to compensate for its overall tediousness. “And those together, I don’t see”.

John Stamos plays a bachelor who learns he has a son and a granddaughter in “Grandfathered“, a new sitcom on Fox. “That’s not really the direction I’m heading in right now, but thank you so much”. Its pilot, a snappy half-hour sprinkled with celebrity cameos and one-liners, isn’t groundbreaking television, but it sets the table for a multigenerational rom-com that might (almost) make up for the fact that I now have to do not forget to watch new episodes of “The Mindy Project” on Hulu every Tuesday. I’m in total support of him. “Employee. Lesbian. Job requirement”, the woman replies, smiling.

Grandfathered airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. and The Grinder follows at 8:30 p.m. on Fox. Only two new shows debut today and one Wednesday. The show-within-a-show is airing its final episode. Like the judge and jury who are happy to let Dean have his way in and with the courtroom, we are inclined to overlook troublesome details for the sake of entertainment. “What is it that I’m not seeing?” Gerald would like to be more than friends who just had a one-night stand. Kelly Jenrette is also spot on as Jimmy’s no-BS assistant. “Grinder rests”, his character concludes after delivering his summation, presumably not for the first time.

The latter-day career of Rob Lowe has been defined by the role he took in Amy Poehler’s Parks and Recreation. (These are men clearly benefiting from living in “The Bubble” of “30 Rock” fame.) More importantly, the actors and writers of both shows work hard to reveal the characters’ warmth and foibles as they each deal with major life curveballs. Stewart sees Dean as a guy who is respected and admired and fawned over and listened to.

This might lead the viewer to wonder if the novelty of normality will eventually wear off for Dean, prompting him to make a break for Tinseltown (and dooming “The Grinder“). Had you been thinking about going back to acting and jumping into another TV show? “Dean, because he doesn’t know what law is, thinks it’s what you see in the movies”. If the show continues to hold up, and people like it and talk about it, I think we really can attract even more terrific talent to guest star on the show.

Dean is so self-serious because for the last nine years, 22 episodes a year, that was his modus operandi.

That’s the real issue, to the extent there is an issue, with The Grinder’s pilot. It would be preferable if he’d been a law student, but there’s still value in having spent so many years studying human nature.

How does your relationship with Rob Lowe, as actors, compare to your relationship, as characters? And is any of this even legal? I enjoyed Mary Elizabeth Ellis on her short run on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia“, but in “The Grinder” she’s subdued and lacks punch.