Sitcom

ABC's "Work It" is off duty. The network said Saturday that the sitcom about two men who dress as women to look for work is off the schedule after only two episodes aired. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation had protested the series, saying it mocked the transgender community. "Work It" attracted little interest from viewers. The Nielsen company said the second episode on Tuesday was seen by less than five million people. GLAAD's Herndon Graddick said Saturday that it was an outdated show.

Single motherhood gets the lame sitcom treatment in "L!fe Happens," a cliche-laden chick flick that seems conceived solely to capitalize on the success of the far more original (and generous to female friendship) "Bridesmaids. " Krysten Ritter, who wrote the script with pal Kat Coiro, plays Kim, a 20-something dog walker able to afford, even with two roommates, a sumptuous house in Los Angeles' trendy Silver Lake neighborhood. Ritter, now the star of the TV sitcom "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23," has a Zooey Deschanel-like gamine quality that's appealing, even...

NBC is cutting the low-rated new sitcom "Free Agents" loose. The comedy is the second casualty of the fall season, both at struggling NBC. The drama "The Playboy Club" got its cancelation notice earlier this week. "Free Agents" starred Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn. NBC said Thursday that the sitcom's last airing was on Wednesday. The comedy drew 3.3 million viewers for this week's episode and finished fourth in its time slot. By comparison, the new NBC sitcom "Up All Night," which preceded "Free Agents" on Wednesday, was watched by 5.6 million and showed audience growth from...

Charlie Sheen will be stirring up a new round of laughs when "Anger Management" arrives June 28. FX on Tuesday set the premiere date for Sheen's new sitcom, which returns him to weekly TV after his noisy exit last season from the CBS hit "Two and a Half Men. " Announced last summer, "Anger Management" is loosely based on the 2003 movie about a non-traditional therapist. Fox says two episodes will air June 28. It has ordered 10 episodes for the first season. Scheduled the same night are the second-season premiere of the comedy "Wilfred," starring Elijah Wood and Jason...

This show should be hateful. Why? 1) "The Class," tonight at 8 on Channel 4, is a demographically contrived sitcom, built to further CBS's goal of youth-i-fying its Monday night comedy block in the post-'Everybody Loves Raymond" era. It's carefully devised to match "How I Met Your Mother" and to remind us of "Friends," which makes it a Franken-sitcom, which makes it creatively corrupt. Like NBC's single-in-the-city clones of the 1990s, it has a factory-made stink to it. 2.)

WHITNEY Starring: Whitney Cummings, Chris D'Elia On: NBC, Channel 7 Time: Tonight, 9:30-10 Why "Whitney"? NBC has a put together a really decent Thursday night comedy block, with "Community," "Parks and Recreation," "The Office," and "30 Rock. " No, they don't bring blockbuster ratings, as NBC's old "Friends"/"Seinfeld" block did, but they are witty, imaginative shows. They feel like they're in line with the tone of today's comedy world - the character humor of the "Parks and Recreation" mockumentary format, the meta-reference that makes "Community"...

At this point, it’s nearly impossible to imagine a fresh friendship-relationship sitcom in the “Friends’’ mode. The genre has been done to death, killed by a million facile little one-liners about bros angling for girl-on-girl action. Every new network frelationship-com that comes out — “Better With You,’’ “Perfect Couples,’’ “Rules of Engagement’’ — is just so much more evidence of lifelessness. Only “How I Met Your Mother,’’ with its dynamic time-shifting, has managed to find a spark in recent years.

"Hot in Cleveland’’ returns for season 2 tonight with Betty White in a prison cell playing harmonica and singing “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.’’ “Hey, Fresh Meat, pipe down,’’ her surly cellmate warns her and — OMTVG! — it’s Mary Tyler Moore. By the end of the bit, Moore has sampled Lou Grant’s famous line from the premiere of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show’’: “I hate spunk.’’ The scene, the only one featuring Moore, is a classic-TV nano-rush, as the two “Moore Show’’ alums create a brief moment.

‘Big Lake’’ is bad, but not bad enough to be good. What I mean is, the new Comedy Central series is off-key, but not so off-key that it’s demented and weird like, say, Comedy Central’s “Strangers With Candy.’’ It’s just a flat traditional sitcom built around lazy, repetitive jokes and audience cackles. It’s just bad. Why should the show, which premieres tonight at 10, be anything better? For one thing, it’s from Funny or Die guys Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, and it features Ferrell’s fellow “Saturday Night Live’’ alums Chris Parnell and...

If the phrase "cranky sitcom dad" sends shivers up your spine, if the prospect of seeing Bob Saget back in "Full House" mode gives you flaccid-sitcom flashbacks, if the promise of punch lines about balding men makes your throat tighten, and if the thought of one more sassy-cute sitcom daughter triggers a saccharine headache, then stay away from "Surviving Suburbia" at all costs. You may not survive this new ABC series, which premieres tonight at 9:30 on Channel 5. I guess someone at ABC feels obliged to keep the long TV tradition of mediocrity alive, no matter how tired it is....

ABC's "Work It" is off duty. The network said Saturday that the sitcom about two men who dress as women to look for work is off the schedule after only two episodes aired. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation had protested the series, saying it mocked the transgender community. "Work It" attracted little interest from viewers. The Nielsen company said the second episode on Tuesday was seen by less than five million people. GLAAD's Herndon Graddick said Saturday that it was an outdated show.

ABC's new sitcom, "Work It," which depicts two out-of-work men who dress as women to land jobs in a tough economy, is drawing ire from groups that say the show mocks the transgender community. "Though the show is not about transgender people, it's about the notion that men presenting as women is funny," said Herndon Graddick of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "It re-enforces inaccurate and tired stereotypes that are injurious to transgender Americans," said Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization working on behalf of lesbian,...

I HATE MY TEENAGE DAUGHTER Starring: Jaime Pressly, Katie Finneran, Kristi Lauren, Aisha Dee On: Fox, Channel 25 Time: Tonight, 9:30-10 THE EXES Starring: Donald Faison, Wayne Knight, Kristen Johnston, David Alan Basche On: TV Land Time: Tonight, 10:30-11 Some sitcoms are very sitcomy. They're too loud, too stuffed with one-liners, too obviously set on a soundstage, too farcical. They're overly brightly lit, overly caricature-filled, overly guffawed at by studio audiences, overly sweetened by laugh tracks.

The prima donna designer, just back from a three-week stint in Paris, charges into her New York workroom and demands to see the progress her lackeys have made on her latest collection. Thanks to pharmaceuticals, she's capricious in her demeanor and persnickety about what she sees. As the clothes emerge, she's aghast. Jewel tones? Loose fits? It's a fashion horror show. "I told you, we're designing for Kirsten Dunst, not Kirstie Alley," she sneers. "What is this? ‘Veronica's Closet'?"

THE WAR of wisecracks that erupted this week between Democratic senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Scott Brown was disappointing for several reasons. First, it may have genuinely offended some people beyond the partisans who somewhat cynically rushed in to fan the flames. Second, it seems to portend a long, sour campaign focused on personality rather than policy. For the sake of the electorate, the candidates should put it aside and move on to other topics.

NBC is cutting the low-rated new sitcom "Free Agents" loose. The comedy is the second casualty of the fall season, both at struggling NBC. The drama "The Playboy Club" got its cancelation notice earlier this week. "Free Agents" starred Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn. NBC said Thursday that the sitcom's last airing was on Wednesday. The comedy drew 3.3 million viewers for this week's episode and finished fourth in its time slot. By comparison, the new NBC sitcom "Up All Night," which preceded "Free Agents" on Wednesday, was watched by 5.6 million and showed audience growth from...

You haven't seen "Teachers" yet. But in a sense you have, on every other fifth-rate workplace sitcom ever made. There is absolutely nothing imaginative about NBC's slavishly dopey comedy, which fires off race, breast, and gay jokes like a kid with a spitball straw and too much saliva. This show, which premieres tonight at 9:30 on Channel 7, is so stupid it makes NBC's "Joey" and the late "Four Kings" look like TV's A students. How did this rotten apple make it to prime time? The selection process probably had nothing to do with the funniness factor of the "Teachers" script and something to do...

There are bad sitcoms, and then there are bad sitcoms that simply depress. They're like a nauseating Disney ride called Existential Railroad that runs through the dark heart of American emptiness. Scripted versions of "The Jerry Springer Show," they are sound and fury signifying a headache. Fox's "Do Not Disturb," which premieres tonight at 9:30 on Channel 25, is a sitcom that bombards you with a whole mess of loud, stupid, obvious, politically incorrect material, hoping it will make you forget about the pervasive pointlessness.