Sunday, September 16, 2007

'Cavemen'

A show about network executives, perhaps? Yes, but only indirectly. It says something about network desperation when a show based on a series of insurance commercials gets the go-ahead. The result proves that, not surprisingly, what might work at a length of 30 seconds doesn't hold up to expansion by about 1,000 percent. ABC was so unhappy with the sitcom's pilot that the premiere episode has been heavily retooled. But the central premise remains the same: a comic allegory in which hairy cavemen are an oppressed minority trying to shed stereotypes and assimilate. Maybe if this flops, as is widely expected, ABC will try a sitcom about Geico's other ad series, the talking cockney lizard, or maybe the further adventures of that annoying Aflac duck. Nothing bad can be ruled out. (Tuesdays at 8 p.m.; debuts Oct. 2.)

"Carpoolers" is just the thing for commuters who, once they drag themselves home after a hard day's work, want to relive the fun and frolic of gridlock, honking horns, detours and flat tires. Actually -- although "Carpoolers" does contain scenes set in a car occupied by four suburban buddies who work in the same vicinity -- it isn't about traffic but rather about the perils and pitfalls of contemporary America. Jerry O'Connell (the poor man's Steve Guttenberg) is among the stars, but the show is stolen by potential comic discovery T.J. Miller as an overgrown mama's boy who lives at home, fears employment and spends the day watching reruns in his underpants. It's doubtful, though, that enough episodes of "Carpoolers" will be produced ever to make it into rerun rotation. (Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m.; debuts Oct. 2.)

Perhaps it's only fitting, though unfortunate, that a sitcom about amnesia be forgettable. The best thing about this uncertain exercise is star Christina Applegate, who came of age on Fox's "Married . . . With Children" and deserves a show of her own -- a better one than this. Awaking after eight days in a coma, our plucky and perky urban heroine doesn't remember who she is and wanders about in a fog, ditched by a boyfriend she can't remember and mystified by someone pretending to be her best friend. Such developments require the star to be in frequent hissy snits, and nobody wants a crabby Applegate. (Mondays at 9:30 p.m.; debuts Oct. 15.)

"Private Practice" already had a de facto premiere on ABC last season as an episode of "Grey's Anatomy," off which it's been spun -- spun to the point of blithering idiocy. Dr. Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) falls from Grace -- Seattle's Grace Hospital -- and lands in Los Angeles at a "private medical co-op" called Oceanside Wellness Center, where unorthodox approaches abound. Co-stars include Audra McDonald, Amy Brenneman and Tim Daly, all trying to be cute and kooky but coming off as flat and feeble. The writers, meanwhile, don't push the envelope so much as maul it; the pilot includes a subplot about a wife and mistress battling over a dead man's sperm. This show about alternative medicine isn't alternative entertainment so much as an alternative to entertainment. Open wide and say, "Ugh." (Wednesdays at 9 p.m.; debuts Sept. 26.)

"Pushing Daisies" got lots of buzz (as the saying goes) when it was trotted out at the network "press tour," and the reason is obvious: Whatever else the whimsical drama may be, it is definitely different. So: Whatever else may it be? For starters: fey, twee and coy. Cleverly enough, ABC made the premise so complicated that explaining it takes up most of the space available to a reviewer: There's this guy, see, in a town called Coeur d'Coeurs, see, and in addition to love and baking pies, he has a sort of quirk: He can bring dead people back to life merely by touching them. Then they can sit up and, if they died unnaturally, announce who was responsible for their deaths. But there's a major catch: The lucky corpses can stay alive for only a minute. Any longer and, in the words of the insufferably gabby narrator, "someone else has to die." Visually gorgeous but emotionally inert, "Pushing Daisies" seems one of those ideas better suited to one-time feature-film length than to a weekly series. (Wednesdays at 8 p.m.; debuts Oct. 3.)

"Dirty Sexy Money" attempts to revive the "Dallas" dynasty, at least to the extent of delivering the lowdown on the high jinks of a wickedly wealthy American clan. The tone, however, is more sardonic and the characters more wittily conceived than on those soaps of yore that tried to pass themselves off as serious drama. Peter Krause, who impressed many a viewer as the principal nut in HBO's "Six Feet Under," leads a glitteringly impressive ensemble cast, which includes Donald Sutherland and Jill Clayburgh doing the patriarch-matriarch polka. Unusual doings in the pilot include a cameo by Dan Rather as himself, a snoopy guest at a loopy dinner party. (Wednesdays at 10 p.m.; debuts Sept. 26.)

"Big Shots," which might have been titled "Louses and Spouses," offers yet more dubiously reliable evidence that beneath the pampering, the private planes and the polo ponies, the rich are really miserable, insecure, back-stabbing snots. Dylan McDermott is the most conspicuous of four chief executives who hang together at work and play -- and share a lust for money, power, more money and, while they're at it, more lust. Facetious drama done with a wink and a leer, "Big Shots" sets the record for most uses of the word "penis" in a prime-time pilot. It also helps reinforce ABC's reputation as the Attitude Broadcasting Company; the most prominent of its new shows, like this one, are sly, out-there and stylishly stylized. (Thursdays debuts at 10 p.m.; Sept. 26.)

Heaven help us: It's "The View" with guns! At least, it sounds like it. Actually, one of the eye-catching stars of this slick and sexy mystery series has called it " 'Sex and the City' Meets 'CSI,' " in that its quartet of glamorous busybodies gossip like magpies even while trying to determine who's responsible for the latest stiff on the slab (i.e., murder victim at the morgue). Angie Harmon leads a comely cast of crime-solving beauties who flutter around the big city and, you can bet, are a long way from Jessica Fletcher, baby. (Fridays at 9 p.m.; debuts Oct. 12.)