Underemployed

These young Chicagoans are seriously, but amusingly, Underemployed--the title of a disarmingly scruffy new MTV hour-long dramedy from Six Feet Under's Craig Wright that nails the confusion (sometimes sexual) and disappointment (usually economic) of a generation raised to expect more than today's society is offering.

The plotting of the pilot is a bit too pat at times, but two subsequent episodes bolster the argument that Underemployed deserves a shot at going full-time.

It remains to be seen if Underemployed will have time to spread its dramatic wings and shake off its ham-fisted preachiness--but it's off to a promising, if predictable, start.

There is a story to be made from this, about aspiration and achievement and what goes on in the gap between them, but that is not a story that television, or any other form of American mass culture, particularly likes to tell. Underemployed flirts with it but more often settles for flattering its audience, reflecting not only its hopes but also its resentments.

Like a lot of newly minted grads, Underemployed doesn't qualify as an instant success. Yet viewed in the context of its ambitions, neither can it be dismissed as an underachiever.

The largely unknown cast is game and not unskilled, but it can't make up for the familiar situations and unremarkable dialogue.

The show's humor is tepid at best. The characters are mostly annoying--and bereft of the vulnerability and honesty that make you want to root for the similarly self-involved twentysomethings in "Girls."