Lead actresses rise above bland TBS sitcoms

The first flaw in TBS' "My Boys" is no Chicago sportswriter looks like Jordana Spiro, who plays the foxy blond PJ Franklin. What's more, no Chicago sportswriter works like her, because she never seems to actually do any work (although I can think of one or two who come close). Yet the most damning thing about the "My Boys" season premiere "The Transitioning" at 8:30 p.m. today on TBS is no Chicago journalist worth his or her salt uses "transition" as a verb.

Don't verb nouns: It's a good rule and one all journalists - sportswriters and legitimate writers alike - would be well-advised to observe at all times.

Unfortunately, "My Boys" screenwriter Betsy Thomas breaks it right away, as PJ and her best gal pal, Kellee Stewart's Stephanie, consult on a trip to Italy over how to "transition" a certain guy PJ is fond of from buddy to boyfriend.

That consultation takes place in an airplane bathroom, and I think I speak for all "My Boys" viewers in saying this is not exactly the pair I hoped to find sharing an airplane bathroom on this show. Truth be told, PJ would most likely desire a different partner for joining the mile-high club as well.

The guy does happen to be along for the ride on this trip to Italy, as is Stephanie's new boyfriend, but TBS has sworn me to secrecy not to reveal the beau's name. So let me just say if you can't figure it out for yourself already you either haven't been watching or the show has routinely put you to sleep.

One's as likely as the other, because Betsy Thomas is a writer who doesn't seem to work much, either. All she can think of for her female sportswriter to do is go through the old romantic-tease plot line, previously done to death on "Cheers," "Friends" and any number of other sitcoms.

Thomas sends PJ off to Italy with her dream guy and all she does is place obstacles in their path. First PJ is overly cautious about expressing herself. Then Stephanie breaks up with her boyfriend and becomes a third wheel to the other couple. By the time they get back to Chicago, nothing has happened, except that Jamie Kaler's studly Mike has gotten more action here at home than PJ and her beau did in Italy.

The rub is that Mike has gotten it from a waitress at Crowley's, the hangout of PJ and her posse of "Boys" - who give this show its basic premise - over the direct warnings of the other guys.

"It's lame to hit on a waitress," says Reid Scott's radio disc jockey Brendan.

"Besides, you don't (poop) where you eat," adds Michael Bunin's Kenny, in the most authentically Chicago scatological metaphor on the show.

Jim Gaffigan says some funny things as well as PJ's older brother, Andy. He's the best thing about the series, and combined with Spiro's hunch-shouldered likability it's enough to make "My Boys" an endearing waste of time. But it's still a waste of time, kind of like the Tribune's sports columnists.

Nancy Travis is the best thing about "The Bill Engvall Show," returning immediately before "My Boys" at 8 tonight on TBS. But otherwise the show is so awful she can't even lift it to the near-respectability of being veg-out TV. Engvall, previously best know as one of the "Cornpone Kings of Comedy," or something like that, is so bad as a father and husband it makes this lame attempt at a family sitcom irredeemable.

Engvall raises his eyebrows to feign surprise when one of his three kids cracks wise with a line right out of Sitcom Writing 101, but he doesn't seem to realize his middle child is a stoner who'd fit right in on the "Harold & Kumar" movies. (A better title for this series would be "Father Knows Jack.") His other children aren't any more original. The older daughter is a status-obsessed mall rat, and the younger son is a precocious brainiac.

So don't tell me they can't yet clone humans; hack sitcom writers do it every day.

All of which only makes a viewer wonder what Nancy Travis is doing in a show like this. When she takes her flashy new cell phone and orders it, "Text 'dinner's ready' to the kids' phones," she shows the others how comedy is done, but they seem immune to her influence.

Travis might be the best thing about the series, but not even she can raise it to the level of being an endearingly inconsequential waste of time.

Ted Cox writes Tuesday and Thursday in L&E, Friday in sports and Friday in Time out!