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Sep 25, 2017 By Austin Trunick Web Exclusive

Alex (Saturday Night Live‘s Bobby Moynihan) is a newly-divorced, 40-year-old wannabe inventor at rock bottom, sleeping on a mattress in his best friend’s garage and only seeing his eight-year-old daughter twice a week; he’s also a 14-year-old, the new kid in town in early ‘90s Los Angeles; he’s also the 65-year-old CEO of a major tech corporation. Me, Myself & I is a new sitcom set at three points in one character’s life: in current day, in 1991, and the vaguely futuristic world of 2042.

It’s a curious premise for a 22-minute network sitcom, especially when you consider that it divides its scant runtime-per-episode across three separate timelines with entirely different casts. Based on the pilot alone, it’s hard to tell how well this will work-it’s easily imaginable that viewers will gravitate towards one storyline over the others unless the writers’ room can successfully make us feel like we’re watching the life of a single character, rather than snippets from three distinctly different shows. The first episode manages to pull this off, at points-certain turns of phrase are re-used by the different actors, linking them-but it’s not quite enough to convince us yet that current-day Moynihan is the same person we see in the wholesome teen comedy scenes (where he’s played by It‘s Jack Dylan Grazer), or the ones featuring senior citizen actors (where he’s played by Night Court‘s John Larroquette). A wonky framing device, where Moynihan fills in gaps in the storylines directly to the audience, is given no explanation as to why it’s even there, or who he’s talking to; you’re left to suspect that the writers couldn’t figure out a more organic way to clue viewers in on why these scenes are being show to them. Let’s hope this device is dropped after the premise has been fully set up.

Jaleel White (formerly TV’s Steve Urkel) plays current-day Alex’s encouraging best friend, and Fargo‘s Allison Tolman briefly appears as Moynihan’s ex-wife. Both are highlights in their small roles-hopefully they each get more screen time in future episodes. (www.cbs.com/shows/me-myself-and-i)

Author rating: 4/10