‘The Great Indoors,’ CBSFormer Reason editor Virginia Postrel once wrote a book called The Future and Its Enemies. If she watches TV this week, she’ll undoubtedly add a new chapter on CBS. Its three new sitcoms all cling ferociously (if, in one case, hilariously) to the past. If this keeps up, CBS—where the age of the average viewer is already 59, by far the eldest of any broadcast net—will have to change its boastful slogan from The Tiffany Network to The Methuselah Network.

Before getting into a detailed necropsy, it’s worth noting that this is the final week of the fall TV season’s rollout, delayed a bit at CBS until its Thursday-night football schedule wrapped up. There’s no sign of a breakout hit among the new shows, and this final group of CBS stragglers is unlikely to change that. Television critic Glenn Garvin explains.

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