“Kevin Can Wait” (8:30 p.m., CBS) marks Kevin James’ return to television after a nine-season absence. James portrays a recently retired police officer whose retirement plans don’t go exactly as planned.
James, who previously starred from 1998-2007 on CBS’ “The King of Queens,” said his new series was inspired by people he and fellow executive producer Rock Reuben knew growing up on Long Island.
“They kind of go all into the academy together, they put their time in together, and 20 years later they were done,” James said last month during CBS’ portion of the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour.
“These guys are in their 40s, and they’re home, and they had this dream of what they’re going to do together every day,” James said. “We’ll race go- carts. We’ll go to Mets games and spend time with the family. But it doesn’t go that way. Life doesn’t go as you plan it, and that’s what makes it so much fun that we have all these characters to interact with.”
To Reuben, “Kevin Can Wait” has “some familiar notes” to fans of James’ last series, but “also mixes in a whole bunch of new things and takes them to places that they haven’t been with Kevin before.”
One difference from “The King of Queens” is that James’ character is a father. His oldest daughter Kendra (Taylor Spreitler) is dropping out of college so she can support her unemployed fiance Chale (Ryan Cartwright) while he designs the next big app.
His teenager daughter Sara (Mary-Charles Jones) has anger-management issues and youngest son Jack (James DiGiacomo) is a bit of a hypochondriac.
The cast also includes James’ real-life sibling Gary Valentine as his brother Kyle, Leonard Early Howze who had been the partner of James’ character when they were police officers; and Lenny Venito as the oldest friend of James’ character.
Erinn Hayes, who received an Emmy nomination in July for outstanding actress in a short form comedy or drama series for her work on the Adult Swim comedy “Childrens Hospital,” plays the wife of James’ character.
Ted Danson and Kristen Bell star in “The Good Place” (10 p.m. NBC with the first of two back-to-back episodes), about an ordinary woman who enters the afterlife and, thanks to some kind of error, is sent to the Good Place instead of the Bad Place, which is where she belongs.
The series — and its point system to get into the Good Place — was the product of creator Michael Schur’s frustrations from what he described as a four-second-long left-turn light at Beverly Boulevard and Vine Street in Hancock Park.
“When it would go to a yellow light, cars would peel around me and go the other way,” Schur told City News Service.
“I believe the social contract that we’ve all signed is that two cars are allowed to do that,” he said. “If there’s a third car, I would get annoyed because it’s a very short green light arrow I have, but I would give them the benefit of doubt.
“But if there’s a fourth car, I would lose my mind,” Schur said. “That is when I thi
—City News Service