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Viewers may not commit to new sitcom 'Unhitched'

Viewers may not commit to new sitcom 'Unhitched'

At first glance, the new Fox sitcom Unhitched may look a lot like the umpteenth tired rehash of the kind of comedy series that s been done to death on network television: a group of young single pals, trying and usually failing to make it in the wacky world of dating.

Gosh, the comic possibilities seem endless. Unfortunately, we ve seen most of them before.

But wait a minute. The fledgling series, which premieres tonight at 9:30, has a pedigree like no other network TV show to come before it. It s produced by the formidable team of Bobby and Peter Farrelly, known collectively in Hollywood circles as the Farrelly Brothers.

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The duo, who specialize in raunchy, gross-out humor, have brought to the big screen such films as There s Something About Mary, Dumb & Dumber, and Me, Myself and Irene. Their fondness for toilet humor and bodily functions is famous e.g., the laxative scene in Dumber or Cameron Diaz s legendary hair-gel scene in Mary but the crudeness quotient of Farrelly Brothers films is often leavened by a weird kind of sweetness in their characters and at the heart of their stories.

Most of their primary characters are good-hearted; they just happen to be unlucky, or idiots, or both.

Now, with their first foray into network television, an obvious question arises: Can the Farrellys enthusiastically vulgar sense of humor translate from the big screen to the small?

Based on a viewing of the first two episodes of Unhitched, the answer is probably not.

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In the series, you ve got three recently divorced guys in their 30s who are living in Boston and trying, with varying degrees of success, to re-enter the swirling and murky waters of the dating pool. There s Jack Gator Gately (Craig Bierko, formerly of Boston Legal), whose wife suddenly dumped him for an acrobat from Cirque du Soleil.

His pal Tommy (Johnny Sneed, The Heartbreak Kid) is a thrice-divorced womanizer who seems to be having a ball grazing his way through the city s well-stocked buffet of single women. And Freddy (Shaun Majumder, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) is a doctor from India who brought his wife with him to America and is utterly devastated when she leaves him.

The fourth member of the group is Kate (Rashida Jones, The Office), a divorce lawyer who represented all three of the guys in their break-ups and ended up becoming friends with all of them. She, too, is just coming off a long-term relationship.

Since they re all in their upper 30s, all four friends are looking for more than just casual flings well, maybe not Tommy and they still hope to find true love somewhere out there.

Being a Farrelly production, it doesn t take long for things to get down and dirty. In the show s pilot episode in fact, within the first five minutes an amorous orangutan tries its best to molest Gator.

And to open the second episode, Tommy picks up a girl at an ATM and goes home with her, only to walk in on an intervention that the girl s family has organized to cure her of her sex addiction. Tommy agrees that perhaps the family is right, but then he begins marching off to the bedroom with the girl.

What do you think you re doing? asks the girl s startled father.

Tommy replies, What? You don t want her to quit cold turkey, do you?

Of course, expecting the Farrellys to do their best work within the limits imposed by network television is tough. Still, they manage to stay within TV s boundaries while making a show that s edgier than most sitcom offerings this side of premium cable. The series even has a viewer discretion advised label.

In an interview, Jones said a toned-down taste of Farrelly is better than none at all. The Farrellys have a very specific mode of comedy, which they re incredibly good at, and it s big, broad, over-the-top, sometimes gross-you-out comedy, she said.

Majumder agreed. I think the Farrelly Brothers sensibility is all over this show, in many, many ways, he said. [But] there are limits to what we can get away with on national TV. However, a lot of it is there.

But the sitcom is more than a collection of sight gags and potty humor. Its characters are people that viewers can relate to and root for, according to Jones.

The Farrellys, I think, do what they do better than anybody else, she said, which is, they make you feel gross, but they make you laugh really hard.

But what they re also good at is making sure that, at the core of it, there is heart, and that the characters are likable and make you feel empathy towards them.

The humor in Unhitched generally appeals to a lower common denominator, and the program is a hit-and-miss affair.

Both Sneed and Bierko turn in generally solid performances, and their characters are affable. But Majumder s Indian doctor is a broad caricature.

The show s most relatable character is probably the one played by Jones. The daughter of music producer Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton (from TV s The Mod Squad), she brings a nice mix of street savvy and vulnerability to her character.

She has lined up major roles in two upcoming feature films: the DreamWorks comedy I Love You, Man, opposite Paul Rudd, and Chilled in Miami, with Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick, Jr.

It seems Jones has a future. I m not sure I can say the same about Unhitched.

First Published March 2, 2008, 2:33 p.m.

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