NBC's The New Normal - TV Review

This was put forward as one of NBC's better new sitcoms, and based on what I've seen so far, it IS one of the better new sitcoms NBC has to offer this fall.  But it's still not good enough to bother entering my DVR schedule.

KSL-TV said it won't carry it, but no prob, I can just download it on DirecTV.  This show has a gay couple (The Hangover's Justin Bartha and Broadway's Andrew Rannells) going the surrogate-mother route in order to start a family.  The surrogate mom (Georgia King) is poor and raising her daughter (Bebe Woods) on her own now that she's divorcing her dumb-as-doornails husband.  It's almost too feel-good perfect, right?

Enter great-grandmother Ellen Barkin (did she not notice they were making her a great-grandmother?)  She's a racist, homophobic, Fox News-watching judgmental monster who has those one-liners supposed to be Archie Bunker-esque, I suppose, but they go so over the top with her that I never wanted to see her character again.  Racist homophobes can be funny, but they miss the mark here.

Maybe if they tone her down and find new ways to spice up the guys (first episode's too soon to have them embracing their "boring married couple" phase) it can grow into being a good show.