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'Something So Right'

Even stale sitcoms seem fresh when compared with "Something So Right," an alternately enervating and irritating new series from NBC about a "blended" family sharing a Manhattan apartment.

The two lead actors are not attractive or particularly personable: Mel Harris, who moped her way through several seasons of "thirtysomething" and has a very hard time coming to life here, and Jere Burns, best remembered as a sleaze-minded bachelor on the old "Dear John" show. To say the two of them don't set off sparks together is putting it mildly. You'd get more sparks rubbing a Twinkie against a Ho-Ho.

One of the more unusual aspects of the sitcom -- premiering at 8:30 tonight on Channel 4 -- is that the wife's 14-year-old son by a previous marriage has a severe case of the hots for the husband's 16-year-old daughter by a previous marriage. "You're not allowed to see my daughter naked," lectures Dad. It's a ticklishly prickly situation that's not handled very well on the premiere.

Writers John Peaslee and Judd Pillot play the notion of fragmented families and broken homes for laughs with nary a peep of poignancy. But then, in Hollywood, marriage is hardly considered a sacred matter. One of the lamest recurring jokes: The couple, two weeks into their marriage, can't have sex because they keep being interrupted by their kids. Haw haw, that's rich. Why can't these sex-starved sitcom spouses ever lock their bedroom doors?

In the end, success in television almost always boils down to personality, and unfortunately, "Something So Right" doesn't have one.