Kelsey Grammer's "Hank" is simply godawful
The ABC sitcom, says Tim Goodman, is "a moronic and ghastly effort that suffocates under the cloying and annoying blanket of a laugh track so disturbing it should be destroyed. As should the show. What makes no sense about 'Hank' – beyond the fact that it even exists – is that the sitcom is an old-school, multicamera affair with that intrusive laugh track. The three sitcoms that follow it are all single-camera comedies with no laugh track. 'Hank' sticks out – and not in a good way."
Grammer is too "Frasier"-like // "Hank" is lame and predictable
"Hank" seems pitiful // Comes across as empty condescension

"The Middle" is just a middling sitcom
"The Middle," says Heaher Havrilesky, "is worth watching mostly because it demonstrates the perils of lingering somewhere in the middle, whether it's between darkness and light, between subtlety and obviousness, between sharp, hilarious jokes and clumsy, mildly amusing punch lines. ABC's 'Modern Family' is the really great family sitcom to air this fall, and Fox's "Brothers" is the really bad one. Until it disregards the knee-jerk reactions of lowest-common-denominator testing audiences, 'The Middle' will remain somewhere in the middle."
"Middle" is in sync with middle America's mood // "Middle" is much better than "Hank"

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