'Brothers' is bad — really bad

Believe it or not, Michael Strahan has the sort of charm and charisma that could make him a sitcom star.

Too bad he's in a sitcom as bad as "Brothers."

And make no mistake about it, "Brothers" is bad. Really bad. Awful.

It is the kind of show that has nearly killed the traditional sitcom on the broadcast networks. It's so lame it limps.

Strahan — the former all-pro football player who's now a member of the "Fox NFL Sunday" studio team — stars as (what else?) a former all-pro football player.

As the series opens (Friday, 7 p.m., Fox/Ch. 13), fictional Mike has been tricked into coming home by his mother, Adele (CCH Pounder). It seems that his angry, resentful, wheelchair-bound brother, Chill (Daryl Chill Mitchell), is running the family business — a sports-themed restaurant/bar — into the ground.

And then there's his father, Coach (Carl Weathers) — the local high-school football coach — who seems to be suffering from Alzheimer's. Certainly his memory is failing him on a regular basis.

Sounds hilarious, right?

Turns out that Michael has been swindled and lost all his money. And he could help bring business back to the family's restaurant, except that Chill is so angry and bitter he'd rather lose the restaurant than have Mike save it.

Sounds more and more hilarious, right?

What passes for humor in "Brothers" is jokes about the big gap in Mike's front teeth. And the hilarious fact that Chill is in a wheelchair. And the even more hilarious fact that Coach has Alzheimer's.

One critic counted 17 teeth and wheelchair "jokes" (and I use that term loosely) and half a dozen "jokes" about Coach's failing memory.

Maybe I missed it, but when did Alzheimer's become funny?

Apparently, not much is going to change in upcoming episodes, even though executive producer Don Reo assured TV critics that the show wasn't going to be all about teeth, paralysis and dementia.

"Actually, there are still a lot of gap-tooth jokes out there," Strahan said. "I think we're just barely touching it."

"There's quite a few left," Reo added.

So, there will be more "jokes" (and I use that term loosely) like this: