SERIES PREMIERE: In this bawdy new IFC series based on a Funny or Die short, Hank Azaria plays Jim Brockmire, a broadcast-booth baseball announcer trying to bounce back after a decade-old on-air flameout so famous, it’s still a YouTube hit 10 years later, as Brockmire returns to the United States after a decade overseas and without the Internet. Amanda Peet plays the owner of a small-town minor-league baseball team so desperate, it’s changed its team name to the Frackers as a step up. Tyrel Jackson Williams completes the main trio of lead characters as Charles, the tech-savvy young man who knows everything about social media but nothing about baseball – the exact opposite of Brockmire. “Podcasts,” Charles explains helpfully to Brockmire at one point in this very funny eight-episode season. “It’s like radio, but it’s not on the radio.” Azaria, one of the many gifted vocal actors on The Simpsons (and who showed his acting chops on Broadway as David Sarnoff in Aaron Sorkin’s The Farnsworth Invention a decade ago), hits it out of the park here, playing what, in essence, is the Howard Beale of baseball. And the series Brockmire begins with his character’s legendary meltdown – and if you like that (as I do), you know to sit back and enjoy the rest. For a full review, see Ed Martin's TV Mix.

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