Clicker: Love Hurts
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If ABC comedies were rated high to low, ‘The Middle’ and ‘Modern Family’ would be on the high end of the scale. ‘Cougar Town’ would be somewhere in the middle, but ABC’s latest effort, ‘Romantically Challenged,’ would fall on the bottom, where the many humorless sitcoms end up. ‘Romantically Challenged’ is an example of a sitcom with a predictable setup and recycled characters that we’ve seen countless times before. It would have been a funny and successful show, 10 years ago.
Former sitcom star Alyssa Milano (of ‘Who’s the Boss,’ ‘Melrose Place’ and ‘Charmed’) stars in this lackluster sitcom that has everything viewers don’t want to see in a comedy. From the beginning we get a sense of the show’s unoriginal premise. Rebecca Thomas (Milano) is freshly divorced, looking to find love again. To further the romantic cliché, her ex-husband has found another lover. Her friends Perry (Kyle Bornheimer) and Shawn (Josh Lawson) and her sister Lisa (Kelly Stables) discover this information before Rebecca and try to hide the gossip from her. It’s a plot we’ve all seen on TV before.
During the first episode, Rebecca lands a date with a handsome man who she just happened to lock eyes with. In perfect sitcom formula, Rebecca resists making a romantic move, prompting her friends and sister to coach her confidence levels back up. Despite this advice, the date predictably goes badly because of her nerves and lack of experience. The whole scenario is just as generic as it can get.
The saving grace of the show is supporting actor Kyle Bornheimer. Bornheimer plays Rebecca’s friend Perry, a nerdy and slightly neurotic character. He delivers every punch line with a natural ease that never feels forced. Perry and Shawn’s on-screen relationship also proved to be believable, yet not unique to ‘Romantically Challenged.’ The characters have an interesting dynamic. It makes you wish they were the central characters, and the plot revolve around their relationship, instead of Rebecca.
By far the biggest disappointment of the show is the waste of talent with the leading star and director. Milano was a great actress with beauty and charisma on ‘Who’s the Boss?’ in the 1980s as well as the comedy-drama ‘Charmed’ in the late 1990s and 2000s. Emmy Award-winning director James Burrows, whose career has spanned four decades with hit shows like ‘Cheers,’ ‘Friends’ and ‘Will and Grace,’ is one of the most well-known directors in the history of sitcoms. Seeing both names in the opening credits brought hope to this show, but by the end, dissatisfaction and disdain for both Milano and Burrows are present.
‘Romantically Challenged’ might have a chance of working on ABC’s schedule, but the odds are very slim. Signs point to ABC not having confidence in the show. The network cut ‘Romantically Challenged’ from 13 to seven episodes, swapped out the pilot episode with another (the premiere was suppose to be the fourth episode) and aired the show behind ‘Dancing with the Stars’ on Monday nights at 9:30 p.m. It seems executives aren’t confident ‘Romantically Challenged’ can survive without a large lead-in. The premiere garnered 11 million viewers last Monday, but the true test will come when CBS’ ‘The Big Bang Theory’ returns. It’s too early to tell if ‘Romantically Challenged’ will get better in quality or not, but signs point in the direction of this sitcom being on ABC’s list of cancelled showed for the 2009-10 season.
Published on April 24, 2010 at 12:00 pm
