ABC's 'Romantically' is severely 'Challenged'

Television comedy is undergoing a bit of a revival this season.

In addition to CBS's successful Monday-night lineup, ABC launched three hit sitcoms on Wednesday.

But not every show is going to work. Not every show deserves success.

And "Romantically Challenged" is the kind of sitcom that nearly killed off the genre in recent years.

It's loud, unfunny and tasteless.

It wants to be "Friends," but it has none of that show's heart. And it doesn't help that two of the four main characters are, for the most part, utterly unlikable.

The premise is four 30-somethings are looking for love. Well, two of them are looking for love. Two of them are looking for meaningless sexual encounters.

Let the hilarity begin.

Rebecca (Alyssa Milano) is a recently divorced mother of two. (Although only one of her kids is seen in the premiere.) Her ex-husband is the only man she's ever had any kind of relationship with, and she has no dating skills to fall back on.

As "Romantically Challenged" begins, Rebecca is attracted to a man she just met. But he is "the dullest man alive."

"So, it's not like you have to spend the rest of your life with the guy," says her younger sister, Lisa (Kelly Stables). "You could just sleep with the guy."

"You mean — like a one-night stand?" Rebecca says. "I've never had one of those before."

"You haven't? I've never not had one," says her friend, Shawn (Josh Lawson).

Lisa is a kindergarten teacher/tramp. In its description of the show, ABC says she "sees a 'threesome' as 'second base.' "

And the hilarity continues.

Shawn has never had a relationship that was more than a three-night stand. A struggling novelist — and what unpublished novelist isn't struggling? — he's also a leach. He's spent the past six year's sponging off Rebecca's best-friend-since-childhood, Perry (Kyle Bornheimer).

We're told that Perry is a "one of Pittsburgh's most sensitive hopeless romantics," but we don't see that in Monday's premiere. What we see of Perry is that he's a cartoonish buffoon.

And the hilarity continues.

The plot of the premiere revolves around Rebecca's decision to have her first one-night stand.