During “No Reception,” Steve encourages his wife Anne to rebel against her parents after they use the cell phones the Pattersons gave them too much, I suppose by calling all of the time.

Meanwhile, Dr. Jim gets on Henry’s case for getting on Rhonda’s case about making teenage pregnancy seem desirable.

Guest stars for the finale include sitcom veterans Barbara Barrie (Suddenly Susan) and Alan Rachins (Dharma & Greg) as Anne’s parents Val and Pat, respectively.

Stay tuned to learn if ABC decides to renew this midseason clunker for a sophomore run. I personally have no love or even like for the show, but I guess there are at least a few viewers out there somewhere who would be happy to see more of Saget in action.

Surviving Suburbia airs Fridays on ABC at 8pm ET.

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Up tonight (June 12) in the series’ new Fridays at 8pm ET time slot is “If the Shoe Fits, Steal It.” Steve (Saget) is busy being the resident grouch his neighbors know and loathe, until his young daughter Courtney’s shoes are stolen and he finds another way to behave distastefully. This particular time, he decides to blame the mother of one of Courtney’s classmates for the theft.

Somehow, the fact that Courtney’s name is on the bottom of her shoes leads to Steve having to prove he’s interested in his children. Elsewhere, Steve’s son Henry recruits his dad for help hiding his SAT scores from his mother. I’m guessing that means the numbers aren’t good.

Surviving Suburbia is currently scheduled to air on Friday nights at least into July.

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ABC’s Bob Saget sitcom Surviving Suburbia returns to the tube at 9:30pm ET tonight (May 27) on a new day, which is Wednesday for those not keeping track.

Although I’ll probably end up watching eventually more out of writer’s obligation rather than genuine interest (which explains why I’ve already seen every episode aired to date), I’m more keen to see the ratings for the “comedy” now that it doesn’t have a cushy Dancing with the Stars lead-in. If there’s any justice in the TV world, the Nielsen numbers will be as abysmal as the show’s “humor.”

The latest episode of the series is called “Burn Bougainvillea, Burn,” during which Steve and Anne get along fine with their new neighbors … until the strangers decide they want to cut down Anne’s prized bougainvillea, which is a shrub native to South America (yeah — I looked it up).

As that excitement is going on, Steve and Anne’s creepy teenage son Henry remains smitten with the teenage girl down the street, who just happens to be knocked up with her second child. Why anyone would find that situation funny on a supposedly cutesy “family sitcom” is beyond me, but then that’s just me. I didn’t grow up in the ‘burbs, so maybe it takes a special kind of viewer to get the humor in teenage pregnancy.

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For comparison, that’s the same time period that helped establish the first season of Samantha Who? as a hit, although the Christina Applegate comedy’s ratings have decreased substantially since it lost the top-rated lead-in.

Multi-camera Surviving Suburbia stars How I Met Your Mother and Full House’s Saget as suburb-dwelling married father of two Steve Patterson. His wife Anne is played by Men in Trees and Dead Like Me alumna Cynthia Stevenson.

The premise of the series is fairly standard. After two decades of marriage and a color-by-the-numbers existence in a nice suburban neighborhood, Steve still hasn’t turned into a true convert. As a result, his opinion of his lifestyle and surroundings is filled with negativity (but the network prefers the nicer-sounding term “cynical”) and sarcasm.

“Hero,” tonight’s premiere episode, finds Steve the cause of a major disaster when he reluctantly agrees to look after a neighbor’s (Dan Cortese, What I Like About You) house and starts a fire while on duty. Instead of coming clean, Steve pretends to have actually prevented the fire from doing worse damage, and he’s soon hailed as a hero.

I can deal with that plotline, but critical reception of the sitcom has been spotty at best, leaning heavily toward the “Thumbs Way Down in the Gutter” side. Continue below for the series promo, as well as Broadcasting & Cable’s 90-second review roundup for the show, which definitely is not encouraging. On the good side, the current forecast could turn out to be wrong.

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