Hot celebrity Alyssa Milano is 'Romantically Challenged'

There's nothing much more useless on TV than a conventional sitcom that's comedically challenged.

Really, if it can't make you laugh, what does a show like ABC's post-Dancing toss-off Romantically Challenged possibly have to offer? It's not telling us anything new about the human condition, or anything new about anything at all. It's not introducing us to any unfamiliar corner of our world — unless you consider a forgettably bland Hollywood studio set pretending to be Pittsburgh an unfamiliar corner.
The series premiere of "Romantically Challenged," a new comedy on ABC, launches tonight starring Alyssa Milano as Rebecca Thomas, a recent divorcee suddenly thrust back into the dating world. Let me be the first to say "Welcome back to major league TV, Alyssa," and to congratulate you on moving on from that whole "Charmed" debacle. I like that this show is slotted between ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" and "Castle." I don't, however, like that it's being pitted against CBS's "The Big Bang Theory" and the last half hour of "24" on FOX. Milano and company will have their work cut out for them. Hopefully, "Romantically Challenged" won't be "ratings challenged.
Milano stars as Rebecca, a recent Pittsburgh divorcée trying to get back into the dating scene. She is prodded on — loudly, and without a shred of wit — by her baby sister Lisa (Kelly Stables), who is supposed to be humorous because she's sexually voracious.

Frequently joining them at their coffee shop hangout (a Friends-like set that only serves to make the show feel even older and more tired) is Perry, a puppy-dog romantic played by Worst Week's Kyle Bornheimer. He rooms with a playboy would-be writer played by Josh Lawson, who probably gets the show's worst lines, though it's a very close competition.

Problems arise, but don't pay any attention to them, because the show certainly doesn't. Instead, they're resolved with those kind of sitcom solutions that are so pat and lazy, they can't even qualify as an insult to our intelligence, as the writers clearly don't think we have any intelligence to insult.

Still, as terrible as Romantically is, it is in the end more puzzling than insulting. Why would any studio or network waste a star like Milano on a show that would seem to have virtually no chance of survival? Why hire a rising talent like Bornheimer — a sparkling young comic actor who proved in CBS' Worst Week that he was more than capable of carrying a sitcom — and stick him in some washed-out supporting role? We've seen what Bornheimer can do with even marginally decent material; was the goal to show us what he can do without it?

That's a challenge, all right. It's just not one worth watching