Pitch

Ginny Baker (Kylie Bunbury) is the first female MLB player and the new pitcher for the San Diego Padres. Mike Lawson (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is the veteran catcher on the last leg of his celebrated career. Oscar Arguella (Mark Consuelos) is the GM. Outfielder Blip Sanders (Mo McRae) and his wife Evelyn (Meagan Holder) are Ginny's friends. Al Luongo (Dan Lauria) is the gruff, old-fashion manager. Ginny's father is dead and her brother is desperate to cash in on her fame. Amelia Slater (Ali Larter) quits her job to be solely her manager with assistant Eliot (Tim Jo).

This could have been a bad gimmicky TV show. The use of real MLB teams helps a lot but it's Bunbury that makes this show works. She has great sincerity and terrific charms. Gosselaar is now a veteran of TV acting and uses it to deliver a veteran performance. This is a solid show although it only lasted one season with ten episodes.

I was skeptic about this show's success, but I was very intrigued right away. I am a big baseball fan, but I thought it would be too feminist for me. I am a guy that is bigly anti-feminism (not to be confused with sexist) and thought it's focus would be too much on that. Although there was some of that, it focused on the baseball element and that it was tougher biologically for a woman than for a man. Acting is good, love how they can incorporate MLB teams (I thought I saw Andrew McCutchen batting for the Dodgers). Give this show a shot. It kind of reminds me of Arrow, with the constant flashbacks. However some of the flashbacks are very entertaining seeing Ginny's minor league days. Even the style of baseball played by the actors is fooling, because it looks pretty legit, especially with the FOX Sports layout for the games on television. MLB should invest in more baseball TV Series', because this is very good.

Kylie is terrific and the exploration of what it would feel like to be the first woman in MLB is done very well. I appreciate this kind of TV that has heart and drama. And I like the depiction of how MLB works as a business.

Is it perfect? More so than 95% of network TV.

I think the show would have done better in the ratings as a spring or summer show, when baseball fans are in tune with a rookie being called up. Starting it in the World Series time frame is out of sync as the emphasis now is on the best of the best.

I very much hope Fox lets this one play out as a spring/summer show in 2017.

Well, the ...alien queen from "Under the Dome" is back in another TV series destined to flop.

With a premise which otherwise might have been interesting (a woman trying to succeed in a sport ruled by men) this show starts terrible, achieving the exact opposite its producers would hope for.

From the very beginning the writers are trying to create an atmosphere of success and awe about their characters and all they succeeding is to make them unlikeable caricatures and to sound ridiculous.

Ginny Baker is "the most important woman in the world", "the whole world is talking about her", she is "Hillary Clinton with sex appeal" and a "Kardashian with a skill set". (Honestly who writes these lines??)

Her agent (played by Ali Larter) is to be hated instantly too. She passed an invitation to ...lake Como from George Clooney and she is the absolute boss of anyone she meets.

It is obvious where this is going, and it doesn't look pretty. I'm seeing some critics praise it, but the consensus among the viewers is negative, and the ratings are low.

The only thing that made me smile a little was the ...appearance of Mark-Paul Gosselaar. Forget the attractive blond-ish lawyer from Franklin and Bash. Here is ...fat and with a ridiculous beard.

Overall: Sometimes writers are trying to follow a recipe, to build larger than life characters, to move the audience with superficial feelings and to lure the viewers into a world of what they think is magic. If they don't actually feel it themselves or trying too hard to create a hype, the result is atrocious and it will blow out in their faces.

"Pitch" is one of these cases.

UPDATE: Despite a ...93% (!!!) positive reviews from critics. This crap is now canceled! Told you from Day 1.

.

Perfect Pitch! Get it!

Ideal show for the #MeToo era. Too bad more people didn't watch. I really enjoyed it.