They are called sitcoms after all, for situation comedy, but the more that I see half hour comedies succeed and fail, the more the situation seems less important. I don’t think ‘Friends’, or ‘Seinfeld’, or ‘The Cosby Show’ really were great because of how they were set up. It came down to the writers, the actors, and the relationships. Which brings us to two new sitcoms that premiered over the past couple weeks, and a few that returned after a little strike break. New shows added to the roster are ‘The Return of Jezebel James’ by fan favorite Amy Sherman Palladino and ‘Miss/Guided.’

In Jezebel we meet two sisters in a sort of Odd Couple premise. Parker Posey, mostly known for indie Christopher Guest films like ‘Waiting for Guffman’, and who I generally dig, plays the type A sister who works in children’s publishing, recently broken up, and unable to have kids. Lauren Ambrose, who I also dig due to Six Feet Under excellence, plays the ‘loser’ sister who has been out of touch until now, agreeing to carry Posey’s baby. They move in together and hijinks ensue.

So what’s the problem? This is basically the same premise as a show that I find pretty funny ‘Two and a Half Men’. Type A brother moves in with bachelor stud brother with crass, lazy kid visiting on weekends. They manage to push the humor in a just beyond stereotypical way. In Jezebel, aside from the zero to sixty start of the carry-my-child relationship, the writing and the characters just weren’t quite beyond the stiff archetype. And Posey somehow found a way to feel more stilted as each line came out of her mouth. Part of the problem is that I expect more out of these gals, and maybe Palladino isn’t quite as comfy in the half hour laugher (and please cut the laugh track), so I will give them time to mature into something worthwhile.

And what of Miss/Guided? Well typically amusing Judy Greer returns to her high school as guidance counselor, where she hopes to have outgrown her geeky ways and is faced with many of the same challenges. This show comes off as a sort of ‘New Adventures of Old Christine’ with an awkward lead with a dash of ‘The Office’ as far as one-on-ones with the camera, in a documentary sort of way.

Again, the show has potential but, as unlikable high school rival Brooke Burke points out to cute-guy, if Greer didn’t reek of desperation… and though I could almost agree with him that the optimism was likable I too found Greer too desperate. Whereas there is something about the way that Dreyfuss on Old Christine is both awkward and not optimistic at all, that lets her comedic timing shine and we’re happy to laugh at, as well as with her. Again I think the Miss’s character and the balance of talk to the camera shots could be finessed to keep folks amused but with the quick burn through of episodes and strike issues not sure they’ll have the chance.

The other returning show that I wanted to give a shout out to is the pretty continually funny ‘How I Met Your Mother’. Now this has a premise of a dad telling kids… well you know… And while I find the premise on this sometimes annoying, it has often enough used the premise successfully. What’s generally a show about five friends plays up the retrospect angle of stories about their relationships in a fresh way and does some funny things with flash forwards (still in the past of telling the story but far ahead of where we’re at in the show).

But again, as much as the premise allows some structure that they’ve actually done a decent job with, it’s really the writing and the ‘supporting’ characters that make this show. Neil Patrick Harris as Barney has been written a role that is priceless with his delivery of one liners and more. And surprisingly the ‘old married couple’ on the show has found a way to make even the dullest moments about tea amusing.

I’ll be tuning into CBS for a chuckle or two during their comedy lineup tonight.

I don’t do much typical show review posting here but last night’s viewing of ‘New Amsterdam’ made me pause and think about some of these fantastical shows that I love. And some that I don’t. I didn’t love ‘New Amsterdam’. The premise is that the lead character has been alive for centuries because some native americans blessed/cursed him whilst saving his life, for saving theirs, to live until his soul is merged with his one true love, or something like that. So after all the years he’s still in New York and is a homicide detective.

Often I like the irregular (some say sci fi but I think it’s really more/other than just that) show because it allows the show to create a new or alternate world, create different limitations or abilities, and watch how the character(s) move within this world. But with the freedom of creating unreal elements to a show comes the burden of scoping the longevity, having them make sense, and most importantly having it add to the show. But even more importantly it does not remove the responsibility of having interesting characters and telling a good story.

So that brings me back to the not in love… I wasn’t crazy about the premise of this guy living forever-ish. I mean he’s kind of like a vampire but not, that’s fine. But they could have put a little more effort into the manifestation story (why is saving his life tied to not getting old? and why is not getting old tied to finding his soul mate?). And the display of his having a near fatal something-like-a-heart-attack when being in the presence of a ton of women one of whom must have been ‘the one’… so with such a strong reaction he’ll at least know when he meets her again, right? But I can let the premise issues slide to see how they develop.

What I have trouble letting slide are that the side effects of his being alive for so many years are a little unbelievable, particularly that all of them came out in the first episode. He designs tables that he can sell for tens of thousands of dollars because they appear as if made by the original craftsman, him (though clearly people could tell that it’s not old wood among other things). He reads lips because he at one time was deaf. He knows that a certain artist uses gold in their painting when a murder victim has it under her nails because of course he used to go out with this artist. And I’m just not sure these unbelievable items add to the show. Though I am willing to cut him a little slack for having lived several more exciting lives than I live. And don’t get me wrong, my life is exciting.

But… the worst thing is that he’s sort of annoying and as a detective show the case couldn’t have been more boring. I didn’t dig the way he just says stuff to regular people about having like 600 girlfriends, and being an alcoholic for like 6,000 days, and I assume calling his dog like 36 because he’s lived through so many of them. And seriously you can’t work and live in the same city, even New York, forever without people seeing you not get old and getting way too far into your business. There seems to be at least a bartender buddy who knows his deal which could be an interesting aspect.

Now I don’t mean to pick on ‘New Amsterdam’, I will even almost positively watch it again since I think you can rarely get the full sense of series from the pilot. I just thought it was a good example of some of the issues I was having with some other new series. ‘Bionic Woman’ had a good premise but not a great lead and laughable cases. ‘Moonlight’ has been done before, and better, with a more interesting cast, though the lead is decent. ‘Reaper’ was a fantastic pilot with fun, interesting characters but week after week I found myself looking for something new.

Now I realize shows like ‘Buffy’ don’t come around every day where there are people who loved it despite (as well as because of) its fantastical elements. And I don’t want to pick on sci fi shows in general, there are a ton of shows with a bad premise, bad characters, and bad stories. But as we all know I’ll keep watching, any and all, waiting and hoping for the gems.