There Is Nothing New Under The Nevada Sun

When we were in Vegas, The Suz and I participated in a test audience for the new fall CBS lineup. The Suz and I, respectively, log a lot of hours in front of the television, and we thought it was time for us to Give Something Back to the networks.

Also, it was free, and we were dangerously close to losing the kids' college funds at that point in the week.

Well, except for the part where neither of us has kids.

The show we screened was called "Two Broke Girls." And no, it was not a reality show about The Suz and me actually going to Vegas. It wasn't even based on our lives back in the old days at the old apartment.

If it had been about either of those things, this show might have had a chance at being funny. It could have featured "The One Where Suz Kills a Bat," and "The One Where Suz Sets the Kitchen on Fire," and "The One Where Manda Has a Stalker" and "The One Where Manda Keeps Pet Swedish Fish."

This show was The One Where Two Stereotypes Meet and Wait Tables Together and One of Them Discovers Her Boyfriend is a Cheat and a Lie.

Being part of a test audience sounds like more fun than it is. We were hustled into a little windowless room with a few dozen other pasty Americans, some of whom were wearing fanny packs. In 2011. I kid you not.

We sat through about half the episode, then they showed us a series of previews of other series coming up in the fall lineup. One of them looked like a rip-off of "The Mentalist:. One of them looked like a rip-off of "House", but with ghosts. One of them looked like the bastard offspring of "Entourage" and "Two and a Half Men", somewhat sanitized but with an extra helping of stereotype and misogyny.

Then they showed us the rest of the episode, which ended with the two shrill and generally irritating "broke girls" sitting on the back of a horse in the backyard of and apartment in Brooklyn. Or maybe it was the Bronx.

I don't remember, and it doesn't matter because I'll buy a lot of things in my TV programming. I'll accept vampires, witches, werewolves, a good-hearted serial killer, a yogurt-eating ex-spy, a physicist who isn't all that good at math, a cranky doctor who wastes thousands of dollars in hospital resources and nearly kills every patient before he cures them, a friendly doctor who can cure a patient with a ball point pen and some gardening gloves. I'll buy a LOT of things. But I won't buy that a waitress in a diner can afford an apartment with a backyard in ANY borough of New York City and that said waitress might have any sort of ability to get and keep a thoroughbred in said backyard. That is just TOO FAR.

After viewing the episode, we got to answer questions on a computer.

CBS: Would you watch this sitcom?
US: I'm pretty sure I've already seen this sitcom. Many, many times.

Then the computer asked us questions about our interest in the preview shows. We were pretty sure we were already watching those as well.

Then there was a series of demographic questions, and then we and the doughy tourists filed out of the room and back into the land of slot machines. It was kind of like that time I took the GRE on computer, but less entertaining.

I'm not of the mind that the sitcom is a dead form. There are quite a few that I like very much. And they're actually mostly on CBS. I'm kind of obsessed with "How I Met Your Mother," even though it's kind of a rip-off of "Friends." It's got fun, likeable characters and sharp dialogue, and even though the writers tend to withhold plot points to the point of being infuriating at times, I think they have a good sense of where everything is going and they tie the pieces together well.

I also enjoy "The Big Bang Theory," although most of the geeks I know are better at math and science than the scripts show those guys to be. Not sure what I'm going to think of "The Office" without Steve Carell, but I'm willing to stick around to find out. And, to borrow a phrase from one of my work colleagues, "Modern Family" almost (but not quite) makes up for the loss of "Arrested Development" (which I still mourn).

So I'm not opposed to sitcoms. But I am opposed to generic rip-offs. I may not have great taste in pop culture. I like a lot of trash. But for the most part, it's at least sort of original trash.