Three kids on the show seems like a warning flag, but they're not so bad. They do remind me a lot of the boys from Malcolm in the Middle -- older dumb one, middle smart one and youngest crazy one -- but only if they were abandoned by their parents and had to live on their wits to survive. They're all devious liars in their own way, and the youngest one curses like a sailor. And the show feels less like Malcolm and more like My Name is Earl, what with the arid setting, the verging-on-white-trash lifestyle, the financial situation and the fact that Tyler is like a hybrid of Jason Lee and Ethan Suplee without the karma. And instead of living in a hotel room, he moves into the kids' tool shed. Which has rattlesnakes.

The rest of the cast shows promise, as well. The paranormal seems to have followed Labine here from Reaper, since fellow demon-hunter Kurt Fuller (the angel Zachariah on Supernatural) plays the school principal; hopefully he'll be a regular fixture, because I've loved him (okay, hated him) since Ghostbusters 2. And Starship Troopers and Frighteners star Jake Busey plays his creditor; again, I hope he returns. Keegan Michael Key from Mad TV plays his boss, and he'd better turn up again, because his uptight character seems pretty funny, and didn't get to do much in the pilot. A cute schoolteacher and Ron's cranky mother round out the cast, and I can already see the storylines unfolding. I'll give it another shot, definitely. After all, I gave Earl plenty, and that show regularly entertained.

What did you think of Sons of Tucson?