TV Reviews : ‘Walter and Emily’: Feuding Family

Two argumentative grandparents move in with their divorced son to care for his 11-year-old son. That’s “Walter and Emily,” the comedy series displacing another first-year series, “The Torkelsons,” in NBC’s lineup at 8:30 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39.

The battling senior spouses of “Walter and Emily” do seem more compatible than “The Torkelsons” with the older demographics of surrounding series “Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest.” NBC will seek bigger audiences for “The Torkelsons” on Sundays, beginning next month.

Seeking reasons to laugh at “Walter and Emily” may prove at least as difficult, however, based on a ho-hum premiere that fails to capitalize on the comedic skills of Brian Keith as gruff Walter and, especially, of that grand farceur Cloris Leachman as the overprotective, health-obsessed Emily.

“Did you go today?” she repeatedly asks her grandson, Zack (Matthew Lawrence), who feigns illness to avoid a confrontation with a fellow 6th-grader. Emily’s concern for Zack’s regularity is the highlight of an opener otherwise trapped in the bowels of blandness.