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Fresh off the plane: 'Red Band Society,' 'Mysteries of Laura'

Fox, NBC get a head start on the fall with adaptations of Spanish series.

Kids with life-threatening illnesses bond in "Red Band Society," narrated by a comatose patient.
Kids with life-threatening illnesses bond in "Red Band Society," narrated by a comatose patient.Read more

* RED BAND SOCIETY. 9 tonight, Fox 29.

* THE MYSTERIES OF LAURA. 10 tonight, NBC10.

* YOU'RE THE WORST. 10:30 p.m. tomorrow, FX.

ARE YOU READY for some high-stakes high jinks?

Calling Fox's "Red Band Society" the feel-good show of the fall might be stretching it, but this drama set in a hospital ward full of adolescents with life-threatening conditions isn't nearly as scary as "Grey's Anatomy."

Because the adolescents in this show, adapted from a Spanish series, don't cut people open every week.

There's a reason so many adults are reading novels aimed at tweens and teens, and there's a reason, too, that the appeal of "Red Band Society" goes beyond its blend of attractive young people and responsible elders (including Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, of "The Help," and Dave Annable, of "Brothers and Sisters").

From "The Hunger Games" to "The Fault in Our Stars," young-adult fiction sells best when it takes its young characters seriously.

Like "Glee," "Red Band Society" is a bit of a fantasy, taking characters who wouldn't share tables in a high-school cafeteria and not only immersing them in one another's lives but leaving them surprisingly free of adult oversight.

Children's hospitals can operate differently from those serving adults, but some of the characters' extended stays have raised eyebrows among U.S. critics. Maybe Spanish viewers, accustomed to universal health care, didn't worry about that?

Maybe they wouldn't have wondered, either, about the not wholly explained presence of a wealthy hypochondriac, played by Griffin Dunne, who enables some of the patients' more daring escapades.

Narrated by Charlie (Griffin Gluck), a 12-year-old in a coma (yes, it's very "If I Stay"), "Red Band" boasts a telegenic young cast that otherwise spends little time lying down.

Shaving his head to play Leo, who's already lost a leg to cancer, didn't render British actor Charlie Rowe a hair less handsome, but if the show makes chronic illness look a little more glamorous than the real thing, at least the attractively pale are, for once, not vampires.

'Mysteries' of Messing

It's all about Spain tonight.

Like "Red Band Society," NBC's "The Mysteries of Laura" is adapted from a Spanish series, this one about a harried mother of twins who's also a police officer. Or a police officer who's also the harried mother of twins. Choose your own adventure.

The real mystery of "Laura" is why Debra Messing ("Will & Grace") would have chosen this particular adventure after the crash and slow burn of NBC's "Smash," in which the opportunity to play a major Broadway talent turned out to mostly mean wincing through her character's personal and professional meltdowns and accessorizing with scarves.

Maybe she just wanted to play someone who carried a gun and knew how to use it? Because it can't be that what she thought was missing from television were depictions of successful women whose personal lives are a hot mess.

That tonight's murder mystery smacks more of USA than NBC may be more than a coincidence: Comcast, which owns both, seems intent on blurring the lines between its successful cable franchises and its network offerings.

I'd like to think that "Laura" broke ground - however muddy - in having the title character's sons urinate on each other in tonight's premiere, but for all I know, that, too, happened in Spain first.

Far from the 'Worst'

Fall starts for me after tomorrow night, when I'll be watching what I'm hoping won't be the series finale of FX's "You're the Worst," the show that, along with FYI's addictive "Married at First Sight" (and "Tiny House Nation") hijacked my summer.

A romantic comedy for people who've seen way too many rom-coms, "Worst" stars Chris Geere as Jimmy Shive-Overly, a British novelist living in L.A., and Aya Cash as Gretchen Cutler, a publicist he met at an ex's wedding.

That their one-night stand turned into something strange and wonderful - sometimes more strange, sometimes more wonderful - is due to both sharp writing and the leads' oddball chemistry.

Creator Stephen Falk, who's written for both "Weeds" and "Orange Is the New Black," told reporters this summer that he "really just set out in showing N>. . . the beginning of a relationship where love is maybe not the goal."

That's the relationship I was looking for with a summer sitcom: a few laughs, a quick fling.

And here I am, 10 weeks later, head over heels.

Phone: 215-854-5950

On Twitter: @elgray

Blog: ph.ly/EllenGray