Wednesday in Review: A Hot Origin Story, Driving With Suburgatory, and much more

Hot In Cleveland Unless of course you are watching the Orange Bowl on ESPN, tonight's best bets are strictly comedy. (Company, which includes Revenge. More about that inside a couple of.) It in some way appears fitting that after TV Land's Hot in Cleveland (10/9c) looks back at the way it all started for Melanie, Pleasure and Victoria, we are thrust into an 1980s time warp, if there is ever a reveal that felt as an artifact from the simpler, sillier time, it's that one. Betty Whitened will get the set-up: "How did everyone meet, anyway?" Elka asks to kill time outdoors a stadium bathroom. "If there have been a TV because, I would not [care]," she barks, self-reflexively acknowledging such a clichéd story this really is. So off we visit a duration of large hair and garish fashion inspired by music videos - Victoria (Wendie Malick) is clothed like a Madonna clone along with a Robert Palmer girl at various points of desperation within the story - because the La ladies meet cute atop a Beverly Hillsides hotel roof, each promising off males permanently, with farcical subplots to follow along with. It's all regulated very corny, as always, but finishes on the comfort-food note of ensemble "here's to us" camaraderie that reminds the group of followers of long term sitcom fanatics how deep the reservoir of goodwill is perfect for these veteran comedy stars. And where does Elka squeeze into this flashback? That gag is simply too best to spoil - but it is an imaginative jerk to 1 of Betty White's most preferred corners from the TV world. Want more fall TV news? Sign up for TV Guide Magazine now! The majority of the major systems have been in repeat mode, so more energy to ABC's hit comedy selection to be brand new. The network made tonight's episode from the garishly stylized Suburgatory (8:30/7:30c) readily available for preview, and it is a particularly strong showcase for that barbed interplay of Jane Levy's wise-alecky Tessa and Carly Chaikin's hilariously robot icy mean-girl Dalia. After acing her driver's exam, Tessa becomes chauffeur (for a small fee) to her spoiled rival, helping her stalk a nearby hottie who eventually ends up going for a shine to Tessa. Not too Delia's purchasing that story for any second: "You help remind me of Tyler Perry at this time: You are joking but you are not funny," she deadpans. Game on between your suburban teen bee-yotches, while war breaks out in the country club when Tessa's father George (a really game Jeremy Sisto) is refused membership, and that he places blame his smarmy dental professional friend Noah (Alan Tudyk), producing a slapstick wrestling brawl inside a sauna where insufficient remains towards the imagination. Elsewhere on ABC's comedy selection, the Hecks possess a heck of the time adhering for their New Year's resolutions around the Middle (8/7c), Phil comes with an adverse a reaction to a doctor's visit on Modern Family (9/8c) as well as on Happy Being, Cent dates Dave's shrink (Party Down's Ken Marino). Good occasions. But tonight's most amusing scene stealer is undoubtedly Ashton Holmes because the sociopathic Tyler around the shamelessly soapy Revenge (10/9c). We have been dying throughout the holidays to understand what's going on with this scene taunted within the previews, and much more lately inside a nine-minute clip from tonight's episode, that shows Tyler threatening the whole Grayson clan, plus Emily Thorne, at gunpoint in a birthday clambake around the beach. My personal favorite moment in the opening act: once the remorseless Tyler confronts the jeopardized Conrad (Henry Czerny) to declare, "It will appear that you simply wretched individuals are beginning to chafe on me." Similar to how Revenge is continuing to grow upon us. How nice to achieve the season's finest guilty pleasure back. FOOD FOR THOUGHT: In the culinary shelf, the Cooking Funnel prepares Not My Mama's Foods (9/8c), by which Paula Deen's boy Bobby puts a proper tweak on his mother's notoriously calorie-unconscious quality recipes. Example: her Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding turns into a Fruit Bread Pudding. Pardon me as i pine for my very own mama's meatloaf. ... It's go large or go back home on Bravo's Top Chef: Texas (10/9c), once the remaining chef-testants split up into teams for any BBQ cookoff. Guest judge is renaissance guy Nathan Myhrvold, whose multi-volume The Modernist Cuisine may be the grounds for this week's Quickfire challenge. Sign up for TV Guide Magazine now!