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Back to You aired from September 2007-May 2008 on Fox.

In the 1990s, the local TV news scene in Pittsburgh was dominated by one team: Chuck Darling (Kelsey Grammer)and Kelly Carr(Patricia Heaton). They had that elusive quality all news teams need: chemistry. at least on-screen. Off-screen, Chuck was a bit of a self-centered womanizer, Kelly a bit of an uptight know-it-all. So when Chuck got the call to move up to a larger market, no tears were shed.
But after an embarrassing on-air tirade ended up on the internet, Chuck found himself on the downswing career-wise. He even questioned whether his lifestyle of chasing women and living in hotels was as exciting as it used to be. So when he got the call to return to Pittsburgh, to reunite with Kelly and try to take the newscast back to No. 1, it was an offer he couldn't refuse.

Back in Pittsburgh, Chuck has a couple of new co-workers: Ryan Church (Josh Gad), the overstressed news director and Montana Diaz Herrera (Ayda Field),the perky, sexy weather anchor. There were also familiar faces like Marsh McGinley (Fred Willard), the affable, endlessly inappropriate sports anchor, and Gary Crezyzewski , pronounced Kre-shoov-ski (Ty Burrell ),the perennially put-upon field reporter who always seemed to get left out in the snow. But, mostly, there was Kelly, now a single mom to 10-year-old Gracie (Laura Marano and later Lily Jackson), whom Chuck discovered was his daughter from a one night stand he had with Kelly 10 years earlier, right before he left Pittsburgh for his glamorous new job.

A Review from Variety

Back to You
(Series -- Fox, Wed. Sept. 19, 8 p.m.)
By BRIAN LOWRY

Filmed in Los Angeles by Levitan/Lloyd Prods. in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Executive producers, Steve Levitan, Christopher Lloyd, James Burrows; supervising producer, Sally Bradford; line producer, Maggie Blanc; director, Burrows; writers, Levitan, Lloyd.

Chuck Darling - Kelsey Grammer
Kelly Carr - Patricia Heaton
Marsh McGinley - Fred Willard
Gary Crezyzewski - Ty Burrell
Ryan Church - Josh Gad
Montana Diaz Herrera - Ayda Field
Gracie Carr - Laura Marano

There isn't a single subtle joke in this newsroom comedy, from the weather girl's heaving cleavage to the 26-year-old news director's sweaty armpits. Still, Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton are solid practitioners of the sitcom craft, and they occupy their characters with playful ease. "Back to You" hardly looks like a breakout hit, and it's an utter mystery how a show much better suited to another network (as in CBS) wound up on Fox. That said, the series has the fixings of a respectable old-fashioned comedy, which is more than can be said for most of this fall's half-hours.
Making like a latter-day Ted Baxter, Grammer plays Chuck Darling -- a puffed-up, preening local news anchor who climbed the market ladder from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles by way of Denver, Minneapolis and Dallas. All that comes crashing down, however, after one YouTube-immortalized diatribe, causing Chuck to retreat back to WURG in Pittsburgh.

A few things around the station are new, like the cherub-faced news director (Josh Gad) and R-trilling Latina meteorologist wannabe Montana Diaz Herrera (Ayda Field, fresh off "Studio 60"). Yet Chuck also is reunited with wacky sports guy Marsh McGinley (a typically daft Fred Willard) and, most significantly, co-anchor Kelly Carr (Heaton), with whom he shared a brief romantic tryst before graduating to the bigger-time.

Grammer and Heaton spar like old hands, but the punches (and punchlines) are so consistently telegraphed, the series seldom rises above the mundane. Nor does it bode well that the second installment continues the incessant bickering that began in the first, which, even with sitcom director extraordinaire James Burrows' hand at the tiller, threatens to quickly grow as stale as the episode's recurring goldfish gag.

Series creators Steve Levitan and Chris Lloyd don't take much advantage of the venue either, though in reality, most local TV news has become so laughable as to thwart efforts at parody. In fact, when eager-to-please correspondent Gary (Ty Burrell) contemplates being Tasered for a piece in the next half-hour, the stunt could hardly approach the merriment of watching CNN's risible Rick Sanchez carry out this semimasochistic ritual for real.

A larger riddle involves what Fox hopes to achieve with its development, birthing bland middle-of-the-road sitcoms like "Back to You's" companion "'Til Death," which almost surely would have lived down to that title barring a first-season assist from "American Idol." If the message from "Arrested Development" was that risk isn't rewarded, let's say this qualifies as an overreaction. (Speaking of overreacting, by the way, the show's studio audience can only be described as absurdly appreciative.)

"Back to You" at least possesses a cast that knows how to glean maximum benefits from modest material, especially in the show's quieter moments. Think of that as this newscast's feel-good sign-off, with the more depressing lead story being that the WURG gang will need those skills and then some if they hope to endure long enough to bask in the afterglow of "Idol" worship.

A Review from The New York Times

Television Review | 'Back to You'
Stay Tuned: Killer Bees, Hair Gel and Clashing Egos
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: September 19, 2007

No one is better in the role of preening gasbag than Kelsey Grammer (“Frasier”), and Patricia Heaton (“Everybody Loves Raymond”) has no equal when it comes to holding a look of long-suffering asperity.

Together Mr. Grammer and Ms. Heaton lift “Back to You,” a comedy that begins tonight on Fox, into a surprisingly amusing half-hour. It’s almost entirely thanks to their talent and chemistry as sparring co-anchors of a local news station in Pittsburgh, because many of the jokes and characters are paint-by-numbers and hark back to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Murphy Brown” and even the short-lived “Good Morning, Miami.”

But even that is a tribute to the adaptability of the television business, which reforms so that it may preserve. When reality shows were new, and sitcoms seemed on the verge of extinction, Fox tried to conform to YouTube-generation tastes with single-camera comedies like “Arrested Development,” a cult favorite that never found a broad, “Malcolm in the Middle” audience. Rather than compete with NBC’s best and more offbeat offerings, like “30 Rock” and “The Office,” Fox has dusted off the oldest sitcom format, with three-camera shots and a laugh track.

“Back to You” could not be more conventional, yet it still manages to be witty in a fresh way.

Mr. Grammer plays Chuck Darling, a once network-bound star who — after losing his job over an inadvertent on-air, off-color rant — has to return to the Pittsburgh station where he began a decade earlier. His co-anchor there, Kelly Carr (Ms. Heaton), took over as the sole anchor after Chuck left and is not thrilled to have him back.

The resentment is not just professional pique: they shared years of clashing egos and one brief, drunken tryst right before he left town. Chuck is vain, bombastic and childish; Kelly is controlling and uptight. Hostility rekindles the moment they are reunited.

The WURG-9 newsroom is populated by familiar types. There’s Montana (Ayda Field), the sexy, slutty weatherwoman, and Marsh (Fred Willard), the aging, politically incorrect sports commentator in loud plaid jackets. They are led by a nervous 26-year-old news director, Ryan (Josh Gad), a rumpled, overweight version of Murphy Brown’s nervous 25-year-old news director, Miles Silverberg.

There are a few concessions to the 21st-century media world: Ryan got his start in the business running the station’s Web site, and Chuck lost his job as an anchorman in Los Angeles because YouTube picked up his live televised rant. (“L.A. Anchorman Fired After Freakout.”)

Chuck naïvely thinks that his colleagues believe his story of having stepped down voluntarily, but Kelly snaps at him that everyone in the world has watched his career-splintering cameo on the Internet.

Chuck is crestfallen, saying, “I was hoping it got lost in all that furor over ‘baby slips off soapy dog.’ ”

There isn’t anything particularly new about a newsroom sitcom, but the setting is almost irresistible for comedy: Everyone is already in on the joke of local news and its weakness for preposterous sweeps-month killer-bee stories, gel-coiffed news readers and weather bimbos. Those were already familiar stereotypes when Mary and Mr. Grant winced at the malapropisms of Ted Baxter, and stayed funny all the way through Will Ferrell’s star turn in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.”

In August Fox oversold the gag in a reality show, “Anchorwoman,” which tried to test whether Lauren Jones, a former bikini model, could lead a local newscast in Tyler, Tex., an experiment that was canceled after one episode. “Back to You” returns to a more classic conceit and veteran comedy actors, and has real charm.

No comic preserve is too old as long as it is properly presented, and no actor is too old if properly preserved.

BACK TO YOU

Fox, tonight at 8, Eastern and Pacific times; 7, Central time.

Created and written by Steven Levitan and Christopher Lloyd; Mr. Levitan and Mr. Lloyd, executive producers; James Burrows, executive producer and director. A Levitan/Lloyd Production in association with 20th Century Fox Television.

WITH: Kelsey Grammer (Chuck Darling), Patricia Heaton (Kelly Carr), Fred Willard (Marsh McGinley), Ty Burrell (Gary Crezyzewski), Josh Gad (Ryan Church), Ayda Field (Montana Diaz Herrera) and Laura Marano (Gracie Carr).

A Review from Entertainment Weekly

Back to You (2007)
B-

By Ken Tucker

The premise of Back to You doesn't sound promising, teaming Kelsey Grammer as a pompous TV news anchor (immediate thought: Didn't he already do pompous definitively on Frasier and Cheers?) with Patricia Heaton as his tense, snappish co-anchor (immediate thought: Didn't she do tense snappishness to death in Everybody Loves Raymond?). But by mixing two elements deftly — the comfy familiarity of the workplace comedy; the invigorating tartness of the acting and writing — you end up with an old-fashioned, studio-audience, irony-free sitcom.

Back to You commences with Grammer's Chuck Darling returning, after a 10-year absence, to his old Pittsburgh news show after bumbling his shot at the big time in L.A., where he was caught swearing on camera (oh, the instant infamy of YouTube postings). A Ted Baxter with brains, Chuck tries to make the best of his failure by bursting into the newsroom with ego unchecked. When he's corrected for mispronouncing the surname of a colleague, he says breezily, ''How is that better than what I said?''

As Kelly Carr, Heaton captures the lacquer- hard tenacity that radiates from many real local- market anchors. She conveys how much more difficult it is for women to achieve anchor credibility. So having Chuck's arrival immediately cut her airtime by at least 50 percent gives her tension wrinkles more wrinkles. It's a bold performance; rather than being cold, Kelly seems intelligent and fully within her rights to call her returning work partner a ''preening gasbag.'' The insult seems correct, not mean.

Co-created by two pros of this format, Christopher Lloyd (Taxi) and Steve Levitan (Just Shoot Me!), Back to You's pilot is directed by the pro's pro, James Burrows (everything from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to Will & Grace). The result zips along with giddy efficiency. Yet two things could eventually drag Back down.

The first: There are too many characters crowded around Grammer and Heaton — a sweaty news director (Josh Gad); a too-hotsy weatherperson (Ayda Field); a correspondent bitter about not getting Chuck's co-anchor position (Ty Burrell). The only one who's just right is Fred Willard's sports reporter Marsh McGinley. As always, Willard's big, empty grin and cluelessness are charming. ''Well,'' he says heartily, exiting a scene, ''I'm off — I still vomit before every show.''

The second involves a Chuck-and-Kelly back- story the producers have asked critics not to reveal. The emphasis this possibly treacly theme is or isn't given later on may determine the show's future quality. Me, I'd rather just watch Grammer and Heaton trade barbs in the newsroom. That's my opinion — back to you, producers.

A Review from The Pittsburgh Gazette

TV Review: 'Back to You' is back
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
By Rob Owen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"When the Pittsburgh-set sitcom "Back to You" premiered on Fox last fall, it aired for five weeks, then disappeared for a month, returned for two weeks, disappeared for three months, aired two episodes in late February and has been MIA ever since.

With the writers' strike over, "Back to You" finally returns for five weeks of uninterrupted episodes beginning tonight at 8:30 on WPGH. If you're a fan who's been troubled by the show's inconsistent airing, you're not alone. Creators and executive producers Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan have been frustrated, too.

"I'm amazed at how, when I tell people what I'm doing, they say, 'Oh, when will that be on?' " Levitan said in a call with reporters Monday. "We believe the show is one where, if you watch it, we hope people will think it's funny."

Ever since its inception, TV observers have noted this traditional, multi-camera sitcom seemed better suited for CBS than Fox, a notion Levitan didn't seem to dispute.

"If we'd been on CBS on Monday nights with a consistent run, maybe we would be in a much better place," he said. "We're trying to get eyeballs on us so we can build. The network is supportive, but we've got to get eyeballs."

The show's fate for fall remains up in the air, but it seems likely to return, especially if ratings for this upcoming run of episodes are decent. (If Fox could renew " 'Til Death" last year, the least it can do is renew the superior "Back to You.")

"Back to You" follows the exploits of pompous news anchor Chuck Darling (Kelsey Grammer), who returns to the same Pittsburgh TV station he worked at in the '90s and is re-teamed with news anchor Kelly Carr (Patricia Heaton). Chuck and Kelly had a one-night fling that produced Kelly's daughter, Gracie (Laura Marano), but the girl doesn't know Chuck is her dad.

Early episodes contained references to Pittsburgh communities and a February episode included a ripped-from-local-headlines plot about an "anthrocon" convention in Pittsburgh. (Costumed furry fans actually have had their annual meeting in Pittsburgh for the past couple of summers.)

KDKA-TV news anchor Ken Rice is an old friend of Levitan's from college, and Rice attended the taping of the pilot last year, offering some suggestions. Writer Abraham Higginbotham grew up in Washington, Pa., and the writers look to him to regularly provide regional flavor to scripts.

"We might at some point have Terry Bradshaw or various things like that, actual Pittsburgh people," Levitan said. "I know you guys have a very young mayor, and that's kind of interesting to us, but we haven't used that yet."

Some days, Luke Ravenstahl's administration does seem ready-made for sitcom fodder. But "Back to You" is less concerned with pleasing Pittsburghers than it is with winning the devotion of American viewers. To that end, after the writers' strike, producers planned to end the season with Gracie learning that Chuck is her father. But network executives wanted to see that plot play out sooner rather than later, so that episode will air next week.

"It's always been a conversation whether Chuck and Kelly's big secret is played best as subtext in the show or if you want to hit it head-on as we did in the episode where Chuck baby-sits Gracie," Loyd said. "We didn't have a clear answer, but the network felt moving up that plot moment was something that could be promoted fairly easily. They also felt the episodes we were doing that hit that head-on were scoring, and they wanted to get [more of] those on as soon as possible."

The baby-sitting episode was one producers envisioned early in the show's development. "It was a chance for the Chuck character to show another side of himself," Levitan said.

"We're feeling that once he's engaged in the daughter relationship, now that he's decided it's something he wants, the whole show has stepped up a notch. Suddenly, he wants something, the audience knows and the audience wants it, too," he said.

"There's no more ambiguity; no, 'Is this right for me?' That doesn't mean it becomes a soft family show, it just means Chuck has a clearer vision of what he thinks he wants."

For a website dedicated to Patricia Heaton go to http://www.patriciaheatononline.com/main.html

To listen to the theme song go to http://www.televisiontunes.com/Back_to_You.html