Might See TV

' Gary Unmarried '
CBS, Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m.
The new sitcom "Gary Unmarried" has a couple of fundamental things working against it. For one, the fact that it's a multicamera sitcom, a television format that would be dead if CBS (and to a lesser degree, Fox) didn't insist on keeping it attached to its feeding tube. Then there's star Jay Mohr, who has done virtually nothing to justify his celebrity since "Action," his short-lived Fox series that's nearly a decade old. And while I realize it's my job to watch everything with an open mind, I just don't care for Mohr and I was pretty determined not to like this show. Therefore, it's with chagrin that I report that "Gary Unmarried" is actually pretty funny. Should the "30 Rock" writers be worried? Certainly not. But for what it is—a very safe, very traditional sitcom—"Unmarried" is pretty appealing. Mohr plays the title character, a divorced painter and father of two trying to rejoin the dating world. His ex-wife Allison (Paula Marshall) snipes at him, and he snipes back. They're sitcom exes—what are they going to do, have a functional relationship? But their one-liners hit more than they miss. Mohr's exchanges are even better with Kathryn Newton and Ryan Malgarini, the child actors who play his son and daughter. Gary tries to calm his son Tom's nerves about interacting with girls, when Tom says he's nervous about the prospect of a girl asking him to "tap it." It doesn't sound terribly funny on paper, but Mohr and Malgarini earn the laugh. I may have to change my verdict on Mohr, who, like his new show, is funnier than he has any right to be.

' Worst Week '
CBS, Mondays, 9:30 p.m.
It's been eight years since Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro faced off in "Meet the Parents," and now the consensus is that it was a hilarious movie. I thought so myself, but I distinctly remember a broader range of reactions to the movie. There were those who found it funny, others who found its crescendo of disaster awkward and hard to watch. It's quite a tightrope walk to introduce a character to moviegoers, make them care about him, then subject him to one humiliating calamity after another and expect them to laugh about it. But that's just the premise of "Worst Week," an American riff on a British format in which a well-intentioned but hapless guy courts misfortune despite his best efforts. Kyle Bornheimer plays Sam, a journalist trying to endear himself to his girlfriend's parents, as she's pregnant and he intends to marry her. On the night he's supposed to show up for dinner with the family, a string of embarrassing circumstances causes him to end up on their doorstep dressed in nothing more than a self-made plastic diaper. It goes downhill from there. At the Television Critics Association press tour, creator Matt Tarses said that the show's Murphy's Law premise will play out week after week, as Sam is introduced to increasingly mortifying mishaps. Even as someone who adores "Meet the Parents," I don't see how that works. I just didn't find "Worst Week" funny; it was just kind of sad. It's tricky to succeed at both making the audience care for Sam and delight at his misfortune, and "Worst Week" pulls off the former at the expense of the latter.

' The Mentalist '
CBS, Tuesdays, 9 p.m.
The police procedural is such well-worn territory that new ones have no choice but to dial up the quirk, add something novel to the premise that makes it worth watching. "The Mentalist" certainly succeeds at delivering an ambitious concept. It's not a novel one, though. In fact, "The Mentalist" veers pretty close to another current show, USA's "Psych." Both shows feature a character, in "The Mentalist's" case Patrick Jane (Simon Baker), who pretends to be a psychic when in fact he is just good at noticing things. He gets paired with actual cops, some of whom are suspicious and dismissive of his deductive skill. But whereas "Psych" is a broad comedy, "The Mentalist" is a serious crime drama, which makes such an outlandish premise much more difficult to credibly execute. Jane, a former cold-reading charlatan, helps an investigative team led by Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) to solve serious crimes, like a gruesome double murder in the pilot episode. He dissects the crime and fingers the culprit, not with schmancy forensic science but with good old-fashioned intuition. The rakishly handsome Baker is winning, but his character isn't served well by the show's execution. In some scenes, the camera acts as Jane's eyes, showing you what he's looking at to arrive at his conclusions. Other times, he just pulls indiscernible facts out of thin air, and is always right. His special powers either seem not that special at times or all too special at others, especially as he continues to remind everyone that he's not actually a psychic. We later learn his motivation. He went on television and claimed to intuit facts about "Red John," a serial killer who leaves a bloody smiley face as his calling card. When Jane arrives home, he finds that Red John paid a visit to his wife and child while he was out. If it seems like the show whiplashes between tones, it's because it does. But that strikes me more as a pilot problem that will even out as the show progresses. "The Mentalist" is worth a three-episode trial.

' The Ex List '
CBS, Fridays, 9 p.m.
CBS loves its psychics. There are the fake ones ("The Mentalist"), the buxom ones ("Ghost Whisperer") and in the case of the new comedy "The Ex List," the cartoonish ones. Elizabeth Reaser plays Bella Bloom, a flower-shop owner with a rich and storied romantic past. Don't call her a hussy—that would be sexist—but let's say she has enough ex-boyfriends to fill up the Aspen Room at the downtown Radisson. During a wild bachelorette party for her sister, she's told by an over-the-top psychic (Anne Bedian) that she has already dated and split from her soulmate. If she doesn't make her way back to him—and fast—she can look forward to a life of loneliness. Bella dismisses the fortune until some of the psychic's other predictions come to pass, and she becomes determined to work her way back through her plentiful beaus to find the one she prematurely dismissed. There are plenty of reasons to hate Bella. She seems needy and self-centered, not to mention she's ... oh, let's just face it, she's a hussy. But Reaser, with beauty, grace and natural comic timing, makes her likable. By the end of the first hour, you get why a gaggle of guys have passed through her life, and that she doesn't have a short attention span; she's just looking for Mr. Perfect and refuses to accept anything less. We should all have that resolve. Joining her in her search through the refuse bin for the Man of Her Dreams is a tempting proposal.