Romantically Challenged, or comically challenged?

When I first heard that Alyssa Milano had a new comedy series premiering Monday night, I was hopeful. I miss great sitcoms. Sure, there are a couple out there right now, like 30 Rock or … um, 30 Rock. And don’t write me and say, “What about The Office?” because I despise Steve Carell, after taking a comedy class from him back in the day.

I crave a good sitcom like Oprah craves double-stuffed Oreos. I grew up watching Cheers, Friends, Roseanne, and Seinfeld. I was spoiled, I admit. But I didn’t know it at the time.  Naively, I just assumed that amazing writers and actors would always be around,  and invent pleasurable shows to while away my nights in 22-minute increments without commercials.  So young.

I find the trend for sitcoms now is to be as dirty and filled with sexual innuendo as much as possible. Hey, I’m not a prude by any means; I’m just tired of it. Dick jokes are easy laughs. It’s much harder to actually use your brain to write dialogue that’s actually witty, and touches on common life experiences.

Thus, my experience with the first episode of ABC’s Romantically Challenged. I stopped counting sex jokes at 23. The whole show was an attempted sex joke. At least the title is apt, as these people wouldn’t know honesty or intimacy if it bit them.

The cast, led by Alyssa (Rebecca),  is comprised of Kyle Bornheimer (Perry), Kelly Stables (Lisa), and Josh Lawson (Shawn).  It’s hard to care about any of them as they have absolutely no redeeming qualities. I realize the cast of Seinfeld didn’t either, but their scripts were funny and rather insightful. Not so here, folks.

Rebecca is just getting her feet wet in the dating pool again, and her friends encourage her to lie about several things, in order to not be intimidating. I’d go into detail, but it’s not worth it. The whole plot is completely predictable: she lies and gets caught. The fact that she convinces her date that her ex-husband is really her 15-year-old son is just ridonkulous.

And the crazy mayhem keeps on coming. Shawn, Rebecca’s friend, tries so hard to be Chandler Bing. He even has the same voice inflections and mannerisms. But where Chandler was lovable, this character is heinous. He’s a writer, and when asked to tutor Rebecca’s teenager in creative writing, he urges him to just plagiarize some of his old stories. When his roommate Perry is having problems with his current girlfriend, because she wants to be spanked and yelled at during sex, Shawn offers to take over because the girl is “blindfolded in the other room anyway.” Sigh.

Lisa, the kindergarten teacher, is just a peach as well. When Perry asks her over for advice, she tells him to practice on her saying, “Now tell me I’m a bitch and you want to bang my head against the headboard.” Really? I mean seriously?

I’m tired of shows like this. Just tired. Maybe I am a prude, so you can watch so I don’t have to. I’m going to go catch a rerun of M*A*S*H.

Clacked by Tara Shrodes
on Apr 19, 2010 @ 23:40 EST5EDT