Benders

Genial but clichéd, this comedy is easygoing and watchable enough and its actors likable, but it's straining to be better than it is. As is typical with this type of sitcom setup, hockey is the framing device to get a bunch of guys -- and the occasional nagging and/or attractive woman -- together to get up to hijinks. Think fantasy football with The League, the pub in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the firehouse in Rescue Me. It's not an accident we bring up Rescue Me, as its star and creator Denis Leary is Benders' producer, and it shows -- his type of brash, crass, occasionally funny humor is all over this show. It would be a lot funnier if the women in the show had more depth or if it didn't feel as if Paul's buddies were developed and cast to be types -- this guy's the one who always says something stupid, this one's the guy who always gets the gang into trouble. Add to that a boatload of comic tropes -- such as overenthusiastic Christians, hot female coworkers who unwittingly turn on their male colleagues with double entendres, what happens when one character tries to stop drinking -- you've seen before.