Weird Loners

Neither awful nor wonderful, Weird Loners occupies that sitcom middle ground of not being great enough to purposely switch on but tolerable to watch if it happens to come on and you can't reach the remote. Some of the gags are positively painful. Stosh, clearly pitched as the louche Charlie Sheen-ish of the cast, is dismissed from his job in the pilot for "banging" his boss's fiancé after loosening her up with a hit of ecstasy. On the other hand, his cousin Eric, who's chubby, so obviously he's the more major loser, stages sock-puppet shows on his stairs. Sigh. You laughing yet? Or do you see these "quirks" for what they are: lazy characterization?

And yet, some of the jokes do land. An unrealistically complicated setup lands all four of the main characters on a park bench, pretending to lip-read the vows of a couple getting married. Eric lip-synchs with the minister, explaining that he's marrying them in the name of "our Lord and savior Jimmy Carter! Or Johnny Cash. It's a J.C. name, those are hard to get." Zing! Winning lines like this occur every now and again, and the cast has the charm to pull 'em off when they do. It's just that "not awful" is not really enough to anchor a TV show these days; weird and quirky characters also need to be grounded with some heart.