Show has identity crisis

“Courting Alex”

Starring: Jenna Elfman, Jillian Bach, Josh Randall…

“Courting Alex”

Starring: Jenna Elfman, Jillian Bach, Josh Randall

CBS Mondays

9:30 p.m.

“Courting Alex,” a new CBS sitcom starring Jenna Elfman, attempts to blend workplace, romantic and buddy comedy but ends up with three partial sitcoms instead of one in its entirety.

The show opens with Alex (Jenna Elfman) taking a business call while she’s on a first date. Hilarity does not ensue. The first five to 10 minutes of the show are devoted to establishing the buddy comedy aspect of the show – the weakest of its points.

Alex has a neighbor who gets to parade into her apartment anytime he wants. She doesn’t seem to like him and, rather than producing laughs, he’s just a waste of time. The plot never explains why they’re such good friends, so it’s not clear why he’s even on the show.

If you can make it through the buddy portion of the show, next up is the workplace comedy. The angle surpasses the earlier one ever so slightly, but isn’t good by any stretch of the imagination.

Alex works at her dad’s law firm. The father character, played by Dabney Coleman, becomes creepy almost immediately by telling clients that he can’t answer the phone because he’s in the bathroom. It only gets worse later in the episode when he asks his daughter for details about her date.

The bright spot in the workplace comes from Jillian Bach as Alex’s assistant and friend, Molly. Her attitude and flightiness contrast nicely with Elfman’s straight-laced lawyer.

The main conflict in the pilot episode comes when a business deal to buy out a bar across the street falls through. Alex and her dad go to talk to the owner; shockingly, he’s Alex’s age, single and attractive. Then the craziest thing happens: He asks her out on a date.

Scott (Josh Randall), the bar owner, saves the show from complete disaster. Randall and Elfman have good chemistry, and he’s just the kind of spontaneous guy that she needs. He’s the Greg to her Dharma.

Alex is confused after her date because she likes Scott, but the business deal she’s negotiating with him complicates the situation. Unfortunately, she seems to think it’s a good idea to discuss it with her neighbor when he barges into her apartment. Sexual innuendo runs rampant, the laughter disappears and it’s hard to remember how good the last scene with Elfman and Randall was.

“Courting Alex” isn’t the worst show ever created – it just has an identity crisis. If the show would stick with one theme and go with it, it would be watchable. The best part of the show is the relationship between Alex and Scott, but with only one or two scenes focusing on them per episode, it just becomes a waiting game for everything else to end.

It’s rare to have the chemistry that we see between two actors like Elfman and Randall, but the show doesn’t capitalize on its greatest asset. Elfman alone can’t carry her show, so it all depends on the supporting cast, and right now only two of the other characters work.

The show would greatly benefit if the father and neighbor were written out and Molly moved into Alex’s building. Molly only has two or three lines in the first episode, and expanding her character adds dimension to her as well as Alex.

“Courting Alex” will probably last a season or two because it’s a decent show with a great time slot. The show needs to be more consistent and focus on Alex’s social life and how it’s affected by her work life instead of the other way around.

If you watch “Two and a Half Men” on CBS Monday nights, stick around for “Courting Alex” at 9:30 just to see Randall and Elfman together. But if you watch “24” on Monday nights, then you’ve probably made the right decision.