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Worst TV Show of the Week

 Whitney on NBC

Predictably, the new fall season of broadcast television has brought viewers more new “comedies” that rely on sex, sex, and more sex as their major source of alleged “humor.” As was demonstrated by its October 6^th episode, one such show is NBC’s Whitney (Thursdays, 9:30 p.m. ET), the Worst TV Show of the Week.

The episode opens with Whitney greeting her live-in boyfriend Alex, who puts on a phony accent as he leers at Whitney, pretending he is “Hans,” an “exchange student” from high school. This naturally leads to more crass innuendo about sex, as Whitney assumes the part of the new captain of the cheerleader team: “Sally had a baby in the bathroom,” she states to the accompaniment of an uproarious laugh track. “Maybe we should go do it,” Whitney continues.

From such an auspicious beginning, the episode cuts to a coffee shop, where Alex steps aside for a busty woman walking by. Whitney becomes outraged that her boyfriend noticed “SpongeBoob Sweatpants,” and shrieks, “You ogled her while I was sharing my feelings with you!” Whitney complains about the incident to her friends, with the divorced Roxanne remarking, “It’s better than my ex-husband’s move of checking out hot chicks, then having intercourse with them in my Saab.” Meanwhile, Alex commiserates with his male friends, which leads the single and promiscuous Mark to bellow to the entire bar, “We’re men. We have needs. We look at boobs. Deal with it, ladies of America! BOOBS!”

Eventually, the episode ends up rehashing a tired “one person gives another the silent treatment” plot that anyone familiar with classic TV has seen dozens of times before. While this part of the program was merely boring, the earlier portions were troubling. Whitney is barely three weeks old, but already one device is becoming tiresome. Once again, Whitney and her boyfriend engage in sexual “role-playing” – which was also the entire premise of the show’s pilot. Apparently, creator and star Whitney Cummings flatters herself that Americans actually want to see her act out her sexual fantasies…once again demonstrating the massive disconnect between average people grounded in reality and the so-called “creative” staff and network executives in Hollywood.

Unfortunately, given NBC’s last-place position in the network ratings and its cancellation of The Playboy Club and Free Agents, so long as Whitney maintains even marginal ratings, the network will likely keep it around. What a pity that, rather than trying something innovative – like, say, something other than sex jokes that only Hollywood insiders find funny – programs like Whitney will continue to be the Worst TV Show of the Week.