Lithgow and Tambor Seize the Day

"A man of action is his own son!" bellows John Lithgow to a confused Jeffrey Tambor in the new NBC comedy Twenty Good Years, an uneven but sometimes funny show about two retirement-age men who realize they have about twenty good years left and decide to live life to its fullest.

Going in I wanted to like this show. I have not regularly viewed a show on network television since Frasier ended its run, and I thought Tambor and Lithgow might have enough chemistry to make this one soar. They are both talented and funny and they do click on screen. Unfortunately, their scenes together are the only ones in this premiere episode that work.

I found the first act rushed, sloppily written and unfunny, and I was about to give up on the show when plastered surgeon John Mason (Lithgow) arrives late for his own birthday party and tells Jeffrey Pyne (Tambor) he's changing the way he lives. At this point the jokes become crisp and edgy, and the force of Lithgow's pesonality keeps me watching until the end.

From this point forward I actually laughed quite a few times, and finished the show not committed necessarily to watching again, but not opposed to setting down the remote if I happened to stumble across it.

Twenty Good Years premieres this fall on NBC.