Unhitched uninspired

Posted by Dan March 13th, 2008 at 10:50am In The Office

I think we all wanted Unhitched to work for Rashida Jones’ sake.

She had to move on after The Office — right? I mean, after Karen got unceremoniously dumped by Jim after last season’s finale, they could’ve kept her around. But it would’ve been a constant well of anxiety — and not the kind that is conducive to comedy.

So, she gets her new show and it has promise from the description — cutie Craig Bierko co-stars (with two other guys you definitely haven’t heard of) in a sitcom about young divorcees in Boston. Hooray! Hopefully it’ll be a cynical, but hip and smart, send-up of modern romance. Optimism! Maybe she’ll have a chance to shine on her own, not living in the shadow of John Krasinski’s Impish Smirk ™. Mirth!

Sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.

The group gathers because something weird happened to Craig Bierko’s butt. It’s not really worth explaining.

Based on the pilot, there’s just not a whole lot there to get excited about. Bierko leads the ensemble as they each have their own disastrous romantic entanglements (a prolonged date with a call girl, one character’s misguided romantic interest in a 16-year-old) — but none of them are buoyed by particularly clever dialogue or interesting characters.

Take Jones’ pickle — she’s insecure about dating a short guy. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a short guy who happens to like even shorter guys, but the conflict was half-developed and his super-secret surprise (I won’t spoil you) isn’t particularly knee-slapping.

The supporting characters are uninspiring too. There’s The Indian Guy, whose biggest comedic asset is his exaggerated accent. I’m not going to play up the ethnic stereotype aspect — because it’s totally not worth getting into — but the character is just lame and uninspired. The other character who, as best I can tell is just a vaguely stonerish ne’er-do-well, fares even worse.

It’s probably just nostalgia that raise my hopes for Unhitched to be better than it really ever had a chance to be. Despite all this, the cast is vaguely likable enough to give it another episode to improve. But, then again, unless you’re some dork with a TV blog I can’t imagine you would have any good reason to give it a second chance.