Big Lake

Oh, no--can it really be an other sitcom about a grown son moving back home after failing big time in the big city? Yes. But not, "oh, no."

Their [Gethard and Parnell] interplay, once things get moving, is appealing, if not quite compelling, but what sold me on the pilot was the moment when 14-year-old Dylan Blue, as Gethard's beyond-the-law kid brother, revealed his dark side, and his gun; I was a little frightened.

The show's tone slips between sitcom cheese and push-the-envelope absurdity.

It just plays like strung-together sketch comedy, working much harder for fewer rewards than if it added a little depth to the characters.

Broadly limned, Big Lake works neither as a satire--and it stops trying after the delivery of Josh's back story--nor as an adventure in surrealist comedy, and it is tough to watch the strain for eccentricity.

It's just a flat traditional sitcom built around lazy, repetitive jokes and audience cackles. It's just bad.

With this much bad acting and writing, this body of water should be declared a Superfund site.