'The Kids Are Alright' looks sharp, while 'The Rookie' walks familiar beat

"The Kids Are Alright" is a terribly generic name for a surprisingly distinctive and personal sitcom, plucked from the memories of series creator Tim Doyle, about growing up the "needy middle child" in a home filled with eight brothers and their quirky but loving parents. Set in 1972, the Nixon-era echoes add an understated timeliness to an ABC sitcom that will rely on curiosity about a "Roseanne"-less "The Conners" to get sampled.

Doyle's alter ego, Timmy Cleary (Jack Gore), is 12 years old, an aspiring theater kid in a house where the sheer number of kids fosters an almost Darwinian struggle for survival in this Irish-Catholic clan. "We do not have the wherewithal in this family for any of you kids to be special," the mom (Mary McCormack) says, while their taciturn dad ("The Walking Dead's" Michael Cudlitz) seems in step with Archie Bunker in terms of his politics.

The gist of "Kids Are Alright" is that the series (narrated by Doyle) takes place during the summer, when the boys have "no supervision" and are more likely to get into trouble. In Tim's case, that includes wanting to try out for a production of "Man of La Mancha," despite his parents' skepticism about such an endeavor, while the family is thrown into turmoil when the oldest brother (Sam Straley) comes home, announcing -- shades of "Saturday Night Fever" -- that he intends to quit the seminary.

Writers are often told to write what they know, only to yield series that stumble over their self-indulgence. Happily, "Kids" has the feel of something steeped in Doyle's recollections but that's universal in many respects, owing a debt to shows like "The Wonder Years," where the parents' grudging affection masks deeper feelings that their generation wasn't inclined to openly share.

It bodes well, too, that beyond being this fall's most promising sitcom pilot, the second episode -- in which Timmy enters a poetry contest -- is every bit as warm and funny as the first. Whether that will translate into a big audience remains to be seen, but ABC has enjoyed some success with this sort of family comedy (see "The Goldbergs"), and the time period suggests that the network has high hopes for the show.

That faith could be misplaced commercially, on a show with such a low-key concept. But in terms of the execution, these "Kids" -- and their folks -- are alright, indeed.

As for "The Rookie," if you really missed Nathan Fillion in "Castle," he's back, playing 40-year-old newbie cop John Nolan, who -- after a "life-altering event" -- joins the LAPD, described by his skeptical superior as "a walking midlife crisis."

Other than the jerky hand-held camerawork (including body-cam video) and a more diverse cast, it feels like the singular version of a cop show produced in the 1970s or '80s (including, yes, "The Rookies"), following three pairs of cops -- each teaming a veteran with a rookie -- as the navigate the colorful streets of Los Angeles, down to the stereotypical loons with which the police must deal.

Fillion is vulnerable and appealing, and he has welcome help from Richard T. Jones as his tough-as-nails boss. But "The Rookie" seems destined to test the limits of that charm, in a show where the shaky imagery can't obscure that we've seen every beat here before.

"The Kids Are Alright" and "The Rookie" premiere Oct. 16 at 8:30 and 10 p.m., respectively, on ABC.

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