After taking a look at the second season of TV Land‘s half-hour comedy, Hot in Cleveland (read my review of the first season on DVD here), which starts its third season on Nov. 30, I must say that it’s habit-forming. Though it winds up with a ridiculously over-the-top bachelorette party in anticipation of one of the characters’ wedding, the raunchy show holds up. Kind, romantic writer Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli) gets a column in Woman’s Day, vain actress Victoria (Wendie Malick) gets a spot on All My Children, sarcastic cosmetic technician Joy (Jane Leeves) gets a gig with the governor of Ohio and elderly Elka (Betty White) gets a courtroom trial and, in the funniest episode, goes underground in an Amish community. Guest stars include Leeves’ former Frasier castmates Peri Gilpin and John Mahoney, Bertinelli’s former TV mom Bonnie Franklin and Mary Tyler Moore as Elka’s cellmate. Other guest stars are a who’s who in classic comedy: Buck Henry (Heaven Can Wait), Carl Reiner (Dick Van Dyke), George Wendt (Cheers) and comedian and Tonight Show with Johnny Carson staple Don Rickles in a finale episode surprise. Also featured: John Schneider (Dukes of Hazzard), rocker Huey Lewis, Jon Lovitz (The Hoax) as a homeless man, underwear model Antonio Sabato, Jr. as a gay bar stud, Amy Sedaris (Strangers with Candy) as the governor’s wife, Sherri Shepherd (30 Rock) as a horny judge, Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Jennifer Love Hewitt (Party of Five) as Victoria’s vain, well-endowed daughter. Some things work, some things don’t (Wayne Knight’s expanded character role does not) and most of the laughs reinforce the women’s bonds without coming at the expense of men, good taste and good values. It’s raunchy but, at the center, sarcastic Hot in Cleveland evokes the Rust Belt Midwest it sends up: good work ethic, cheerful if biting humor and four tough but tender individuals holding on to shared middle class values in difficult times. Of course, it’s sillier than that, with soap opera plot points involving lost children, prisoner pen pals and adopted dogs, but the redemptive theme comes through. Part of why the show succeeds: unlike most of what’s on TV, it doesn’t feel rushed and, like Frasier, which was far superior, it bases the humor on what ought to be taken seriously and it doesn’t always go for the joke.
