Ellen Gray: 'Glory Daze' created to lure 'Conan' audience

GLORY DAZE. 10 tonight, TBS.

TBS, IT SEEMS, really would like Conan O'Brien and his viewers to feel at home.

For the host of "Conan," that means a new Tuesday night lead-in whose stars are from roughly the era he is.

For his fans, at least the young guys TBS hopes will stick like glue as the first-week ratings glow wears off a little, it's an hour-long comedy about, well, young guys.

In a frat house. Doing crazy frat-house things.

OK, so the setting for TBS' new "Glory Daze" is a college in Indiana called Hayes. And it's 1986, by which time O'Brien, who also attended a school whose name started with an "H" - where he'd edited something called the Lampoon - was already putting the magna cum laude history degree he'd earned the year before to its best and highest use, as a TV comedy writer.

Not to worry. Some Reagan references aside, this is an "Animal House" for all seasons, not to mention as generic an hour-long comedy as you'll find on any network this year.

Though not a totally unfunny one.

And as a couple played by Brad Garrett and Upper Darby's Cheri Oteri prepare to drop off their oldest, Joel (Kelly Blatz), for his freshman year at Hayes, "Glory Daze" seems for a moment to be trying to at least look like a brand-name product.

Teri Polo pops up for a few minutes to brighten a later scene - expect her to be back - and Tim Meadows seems to have a regular gig as a professor who may be inclined to overshare.

But whatever heavy lifting occurs in "Glory Daze" is probably going to be handled by what TBS is terming "a cast of fresh faces."

Joel (Blatz), a freshman whom even the network's press materials refer to as "a typical guy next door," is premed, the kid who's planning to take his father's advice and shun fraternities so he can focus on his studies. Eli (Matt Bush) is your standard-issue college-comedy virgin - short and inclined to exaggerate. Jason (Drew Seeley) is a preppy conservative who didn't get into Yale but isn't going to let a little thing like that stop him from taking over the world, and Brian (Hartley Sawyer) is a star baseball player who might never have encountered any of these other characters if they weren't written into the same script.

Blatz isn't bad in the thankless job of guy-with-the-fewest-quirks. But none of them is yet as interesting as one Mike Reno (Callard Harris of "Sons of Anarchy"), the pledge coordinator for a frat called Omega Sigma, which, as you might have guessed by now, is in danger of losing its charter.

If Harris, who's clearly meant to steal every scene he's in, seems a little too cool to be hanging out with the brothers from Omega Sigma, whose deficiencies haven't yet been fully cataloged, it's still not nearly as cool as he's going to need to be if he's to lead this slightly tired toga party right into "Conan's" waiting arms.

What's even better than winning the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor?

For Upper Darby's Tina Fey - yes, that's two Upper Darby mentions in one column for those keeping score at home - it might be knowing that your TV show will be on the air for another season.

One day after PBS aired the Kennedy Center ceremony at which Fey was honored, NBC announced that the Emmy-winning "30 Rock," which has been averaging just under 6.6. million same-day viewers this season, has been picked up for 2011-12.

And, yes, someone felt the need to explain.

Turns out that while a surprising number of people watch other things at 8:30 p.m. on Thursdays, people with money - and DVRs - watch "30 Rock."

According to NBC, the show is "one of the most upscale and most time-shifted comedies on the schedule, tying for the No. 2 most upscale shows among all prime-time series on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox or CW in its concentration of adults 18-49 living in homes with $100,000-plus incomes."

OK, it was also called "bold," "hilarious" and "sophisticated."

Still, the takeaway here might be that if you have a favorite show whose ratings worry you, it's time to quit telling Facebook and Twitter about it and to try to land a high-paying job instead.

NBC also announced that starting Jan. 20, "30 Rock" will move to 10 p.m., as the Peacock, with no new "ER" on the horizon, expands its Thursday comedy block to three full hours, starting with "Community" at 8, followed by a new show, "Perfect Couples," at 8:30, "The Office" at 9, the returning "Parks & Recreation" at 9:30 and "Outsourced" at 10:30. *

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