C'mon, take a 'Free Ride'

PASADENA, Calif. — Rob Roy Thomas has a simple explanation for why he prefers improvisation to writing scripts — it's an attention-deficit thing.

"It's just basically that I have attention-deficit syndrome," said the creator/executive producer of the new Fox comedy "Free Ride," which premieres tonight at 8:30 on Ch. 13. "And I have trouble sitting down and writing scripts.

"I'm a director, so it's just a lot easier for me to go out and have a little bit of information and then turn it into something on the set."

"Free Ride" centers on Nate (Josh Dean), who graduates from college and returns to his hometown in Missouri, not at all sure what to do with the rest of his life. His parents (Loretta Fox and Allan Havey) aren't at all thrilled to see him — they've turned his room into a gym and move Nate into the garage. He reconnects with Amber (Erin Cahill), a cute girl from high school, but it turns out she's engaged. And he ends up hanging out with Dove, a guy who peaked in high school and hails Nate as a long-lost best friend.

Utah native Kirby Heyborne has a recurring role as Dillon, an old pal who has settled down with a wife and children.

And the actors are working from a sketchy outline, improvising their dialogue as the scene is being shot — multiple times in multiple ways, then pieced together in editing.

"Improv is the way I work, basically," Thomas said. "And for me, whatever it is, this show, anything that I do, it's about feelings and what my characters are feeling."

It's the same process he used on the Bravo sitcom "Significant Others." And the process has been refined — "Free Ride" is a better show than "Others" was.

"I would say the biggest, most important thing (I learned) was how to create sympathetic characters, because . . . we could do a lot of funny stuff, but it's meaningless unless you care about the characters," Thomas said. "And the most important thing I got from that was learning how to love my characters so that other people would feel something. And it's not just about jokes."

"Free Ride" is, at times, very funny. Hilarious even. (This being Fox, of course, be prepared for humor that's adult in nature. Although not any more so than — in fact less than — a lot of what passes for comedy on the network.)