For the heck of it, lemme just start with an off-topic observation

The director of Saw VI estimated that any given shot in Transformers 2 cost more than the budget of his entire film in toto.

Say what you will about the Saw series, but it's economy-minded.

Now:

There's nothing wrong with the new Ruby & The Rockits show on ABC Family that--

More subtle writing
Recasting a couple of the adult leads
A better director (where have you gone, James Burrows?)
And driving a stake through the heart of that damned laugh track

--couldn't fix. Unfortunately little of this is likely to happen, because:

The co-creator is Shaun Cassidy, who lost his taste for subtlety back around American Gothic. And the two stars that most need to be replaced are his brothers Patrick and David, who both seem to be walking through their roles.

Wherever Burrows is, he's unavailable, so the director was Ted Wass, who ain't half bad as a comic actor (remember Soap?). Actually, he'd do well in one of the Cassidy's parts. But his resume as a director doesn't force smiles of remembered laughter to my lips.

And then there's the laugh track, as hard-to-kill as Michael Bay's career.

But I wasn't being sarcastic when I said it's unfortunate the fixes I want probably won't happen. They've got a workable concept--estranged brothers who were once part of a '80s band reunite when one finds he has a (previously unknown) teenage daughter.

You can see how this could work for me, right? '80s band, parentless child?
And Alexa Vega, who I wrote about in Repo earlier this year, is a white-hot rising star.

Her heartfelt performance as the child here is utterly different from the awkward, sheltered daughter in that film.

Austin Butler, who apparently is some kind of "tweener" star, is also good as a broody teenager (that's them above, BTW).

As a former rock video chick now married to one of the brothers, Katie Amanda Keane is the kind of woman you're glad to see undulate across a stage wearing spandex (see?), but at least in the pilot, there's not much else to her thankless wife-and-mother part.

Kurt Doss as her younger (Butler is the older) son--named Ben, just to add insult to my injury--should probably get the hook sooner rather than later.

As should the show, unless it gets a lot, lot better. But, as I said, it appears entirely unlikely this will happen.