Shifting Gears premiered this week on ABC, and another sitcom starring Tim Allen is now on the scene again, as networks continue to lean on him for lead roles.

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But after watching the premiere, I think showrunners need to realize that the audience may have aged into the demos of Kat Dennings and Seann William Scott quite a bit more.

You want to know which show does really well with sitcom fans?

Reruns of “Two Broke Girls”. No lie. It streams for free and it’s the “Friends” of those no cost services, where viewers will run it in the background knowing they can jump into the plot whenever they like.

CBS knew this and got the other “Broke Girl” on “The Neighborhood”. I’m of course talking about Beth Behrs. That show is having a solid run.

And SWS has stayed in orbit to catch that same kind of following.

The thing is about Tim Allen is that we’ve been watching him for over 30 years and his characters have just kind of mashed together. This isn’t an indictment on his appeal. Audiences, especially mid week sitcom audiences will always give him a look. And while his style has bled over into being more preachy than funny, we’ll bear with it because of the “Tool Time” equity.

“Shifting Gears” should look at “The Conners. There we saw Sara Gilbert, take some of the load off of John Goodman. Goodman was still terrific, but we got to see the torch passed and it resulted in good television.

The goal should be to build Dennings into another Allen. Because I think she’s almost there already.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

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