Media Credit: Courtesy (From left to right) Shawn Majumder, Craig Bierko, Rashida Jones and Johnny Sneed star as a group of friends who find themselves newly single in Fox's unfunny comedy "Unhitched."

Fox's new comedy "Unhitched" comes to us courtesy of the Farrelly brothers, the creative minds behind "Dumb and Dumber" and "There's Something About Mary." It comes as no surprise, then, that the show's pilot opens with a scene that involves a character being violated by an orangutan. It's the kind of unsettling, gross laugh-out-loud humor audiences have come to expect from the filmmaking duo, now making their small-screen debut.

Unfortunately, the laughs stop there. Aside from its opening scene, "Unhitched" fails to draw laughs out of its run-of-the-mill comedy and transparent characters.

"Unhitched" follows the dating mishaps of its four main characters, who find themselves single again and ready for love (or maybe just lust) in their 30s.

Rashida Jones (of "The Office") stars as Kate, the lone female in the group of friends and a divorce attorney with bad luck when it comes to finding Mr. Right. She balances the group's high testosterone levels and manages to be the only character on the show who acts mature. In fact, she's the only character worth watching.

The show's main character, nicknamed Gator (played by Craig Bierko), fails to impress as a wimpy man-child still recovering from his divorce. He isn't charming or attractive, leaving nothing for audiences to connect with.

The foursome's other characters include Tommy (Johnny Sneed), a dim-witted, thrice-divorced womanizer, and Freddy (Shaun Majumder), a mopey, sensitive, just-divorced doctor with an annoyingly fake Middle-Eastern accent. Think Fez from "That '70s Show," only grown up and much less funny. The accent is obviously an attempt to make boring Freddy funny, but he falls flat as a paper-thin comedy stereotype. Isn't it time we moved past laughing at people with fake accents?

The show gets even less funny as it tries its hardest to wring laughs out of overused comedy devices. In the pilot, Kate goes on a date with a short man who moonlights as a leprechaun for the Boston Celtics. Making fun of short people may have been funny years ago, but not anymore. "Unhitched" also jumps on the cougar bandwagon by featuring a drunk, horny older woman in the second episode - a joke that has already appeared in too many recent movies and TV shows.

This desperate comedy is in dire need of some more original material that follows the lead of the ape-on-human violation of the show's opening scene. If that doesn't happen, the Farrelly brothers should detach themselves from this show and stick to movies.

msevits@dailyemerald.com

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