The premise: Three West Coast women of a certain age get stranded overnight in Cleveland on their way to Paris and discover that to men in a flyover state they're actually - visible.
Sort of the way women in Alaska were to those "Men in Trees."
So naturally, they decide to stay awhile, with Bertinelli's character renting a house that comes with its own crotchety caretaker - enter White - to pursue a chancy romance with a guy she met in a bar (John Schneider, who's been killed off better shows than this and is listed only as a guest star).
This is a cast that for the most part has experienced good, even great, writing in the past, and while I'm not saying Martin's pilot is laugh-free, it's a sight closer to her deservedly short-lived ABC sitcom "Hot Properties" than it is to "Frasier."
("Properties," too, had actresses who deserved better, including "NYPD Blue's" Gail O'Grady and Sofia Vergara, who went on, of course, to become one hot - and very funny - member of ABC's "Modern Family.")
With the recent death of Rue McClanahan, White became the last surviving star of "Golden Girls," a series it's easy to feel nostalgic about (though, as my movie critic colleague Gary Thompson pointed out to me last week, they might be replaced by the women of "Sex and the City," one of whom is now older than McClanahan was when she first played Blanche).
But even if Martin's script were more golden than it is, it would still represent a step backward for actresses who, at any age, deserve better than this kind of stunt casting.
TNT's given us Ray Romano, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula as we've never seen them before in "Men of a Certain Age."
