“Thick and Thin” is thick on fat jokes, and light on laughs. That pretty much sums it up, folks. But because I get paid a penny a word, I’ll still type out the show’s concept. You have Mary (Jessica Capshaw) the former fat chick who lost like 60 pounds and has reached her goal weight, but she’s surrounded by her heavy set mother (Sharon Gless) and frumpy sister (Amy Halloran) who still eat anything and everything they want. Temptations are everywhere (no, not the classic soul group) as the newly single Mary must deal with the struggles of her new body, new image, new Mary.

The real problem of the show was the fact that it’s all one joke. And maybe it’s just because it’s the pilot and they are setting everything up for us, but this was just not a particularly enjoyable show to watch. It wasn’t the most miserable pilot I’ve seen, it was just forgettable. The jokes were either entirely predictable, or just plain bad. The cast looks good on paper, but nothing sparks onscreen. Martin Mull is wasted as Mary’s father, Sharon Gless is forced to deliver limp jokes, and Saturday Night Live’s Chris Parnell as Mary’s brother in law is the only one who delivered some laughs, but even that seemed forced and too reliant on sight gags and physical comedy.

Look, I like fat jokes as much as the next guy, but the one’s in “Thick and Thin” weren’t even particularly funny, and I just don’t know how many episodes they can get out of the same joke. Maybe with some tweaking, they can lay off the constant lard laughs and rely more on the story of a woman who lost 60 pounds adjusting to her new life.

So, I was quite relieved when I found myself laughing out loud (or lol for you youngins) early on as I watched the new CBS comedy “How I Met Your Mother.”

“How I Met Your Mother” starts off with the voice of Bob Saget (which my natural knee jerk reaction had me searching for the remote to change the channel) talking to his two children in the year 2025. He is telling the kids the story of how he met their mother. So then we flashback to the year 2005 and the story begins. So right away it's a neat little premise, and the jokes come fast and furious.

The story goes like this: Ted (Josh Radnor) panics when his best friend Marshall (Jason Segel of "Freaks and Geeks) announces he's going to propose to his girlfriend Lily (Alyson Hannigan of "Free Spirit." What? You don't remember "Free Spirit?" Okay, then of "Buffy" fame). Why? Because suddenly Ted realizes that maybe he's goofed off enough and it's time he finds his true love. So while at a bar with his friend Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), Ted finds the possible "one" in the form of local news reporter Robin (Cobie Smulders). As Ted falls for Robin, comedy ensues.

From Smurf jokes to pirate jokes, it’s smart, funny, and the cast has great chemistry. In fact, Neil Patrick Harris is so funny in this that you almost forgive him for “Stark Raving Mad.” I said almost.

There was one thing I kept wondering though, like let’s say this show becomes a major hit and stays on the air for 6 years. The kids that Bob Saget are talking to will be about 20 years old by then. Ah, whatever, not my problem.

Anyway, “How I Met Your Mother” was a pleasant surprise that had a pleasant surprise of it’s own at the end of the episode. But I aint tellin'. This show will definitely be worth checking out.

Jason Lee stars as Earl, the dicey, beer swigging, white-trash crook who wins a scratch lotto prize, promptly loses the ticket and then gets hit by a car. While recovering in the hospital, he has a spiritual awakening when watching Carson Daly. (Hey, it's no more foolish than Scientology.) Earl decides that the reason his life has turned so bad is because of 'karma.' He then sets out the right the wrongs of his life.

The show has a "Raising Arizona' feel to it. Brilliantly drawn characters, a spectacular cast and laughs from start to finish. Thank goodness NBC decided maybe there is something to single camera half hours, plot lines and intelligent humor.

"My Name Is Earl" airs Tuesdays at 9pm this fall on NBC. We here at TAG will be glued to our sets.

We couldn’t wait to get our grubby paws on a copy of the show and announce the Seinfeld Curse was alive and well. So you can imagine my surprise when it became quite clear that “Old Christine” was damn funny!

In a nutshell, Louis-Dreyfus plays Christine, a divorced mom who is trying to adjust to life as a single woman and raising her son with the help of her ex husband and her younger brother. Oh, and she also has to deal with the fact that her ex husband has moved on and is dating a much younger woman whose name is also Christine. His “new” Christine. Thereby making Louis-Dreyfus “old” Christine. Get it? Okay.

So in the pilot, Old Christine has arranged for her son, Ritchie, to attend a private school. Upon entering the classroom little Ritchie asks his mom where all the black kids are. Christine assures Ritchie there has to be one somewhere; he was on the brochure.

I won’t bother going over every detail and joke in the pilot, because it would be boring for you, and too much work for me, so I’ll just praise the show for its excellent writing by creator Kari Lizer (“Will & Grace”) and the hilarious performance by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. She hasn’t lost a step. Funny as ever.

The show has sharp writing, great physical comedy, and a very solid cast. I look forward to more episodes of this new addition to the CBS comedy lineup.

So until we come across an hour-long pilot, we’ll keep plugging away with the sitcoms. Right now I’m going to review the ABC comedy “Crumbs.” And to make this a little more fun for me, I am going to try and work in the title as often as possible throughout the review.

It seems that after reviewing all the pilots this season, ABC decided to pick up some of the left over Crumbs and green light the Fred Savage sitcom “Crumbs.” The show is about a family whose lives are Crumbling around them. You have Savage as Mitch Crumb (yes, the family’s last name is Crumb. How deliciously convenient!) a Hollywood screenwriter with a secret. I’ll give you a clue: He’s faaaabulousssss! Anyway, he comes home to his estranged brother, his crazy mom, and his dad who has left his marriage for a younger woman. The Crumb family is Crumbling to pieces! And Mitch is going to be one to try and keep the family from falling apart like Crumbs from a PB&J.

Jane Curtain, bless her heart, is so much better than the material given to her by creator Marco Pennette, who also created the ultimate in sitcom mediocrity “Caroline in the City.” I felt bad for Ms. Curtain as I watched her deliver limp jokes and still be the only redeeming quality about the show. I laughed at one joke in the entire pilot episode. Just one. A joke about the song “Kokomo,” which the song itself is a friggin’ joke. And the ending was all sorts of weird, morbid, and dramatic. It was really a pretty miserable 22 minutes.

“Crumbs” is set for midseason.

So, Sam has this totally high power job at the airline company, and his boss is played by the always terrific Philip Baker Hall who’s a total hard-ass, and one of his other co-workers is played by one time Mrs. Tom Cruise, Mimi Rogers, who is totally hitting on Sam. Then you have Sam’s friends, well one of the guys is actually his brother Sully, who is a total slacker and goes through jobs like we go through boxes of wine at the T.A.G. offices, and of course there’s the love interest in that of Piper, who Sam has been friends with since college, but he totally has a crush on her.

So anyway, that was just a quick review I knocked out while I was dusting off Les Moonves' Hummel collection. Stay tuned for reviews of even more pilots, right here at TVadviceguy.com

The three ladies work together as a team in an upscale Manhattan real estate agency, but their relationships, or lack thereof, are also key plot points in this trite comedy. In the pilot, the ladies meet a client who is about to be married. She and her husband are virgins and have been waiting till their wedding night to consummate the relationship. We learn this because the client, played by a sickly skinny Audra Blaser, feels like she can confide that kind of personal information to a group of strangers. Anyway, after a few jokes that you can see coming a city block away, the real estate agents become fast friends with this new client, and I guess she ultimately becomes a fourth partner.

The simple fact is that this show had no spark. No zing. The jokes fell flat. The characters are not interesting and poorly developed. I thought Nicole Sullivan played her part way too broad and was often going too big with her jokes. I felt like I was watching her in an old “Mad TV” sketch. Gail O’ Grady was decent, but you never really care much about her character. Sofia Vergara is this total bodacious babe, and we’re supposed to believe the only men she can attract are gay guys. Gimmie a break. If that’s true, it might only be because of her seemingly put on Latin accent that comes off as a cross between Penelope Cruz and Jose Jimenez. With a dash of Kathleen Turner.

Anyway, I hope next season ABC does better than this fluff, which is rightfully being cast off to Friday nights. But I dunno… “Freddie” looks like a real clunker as well.

This new UPN sitcom, inspired by comedian Chris Rock's real life adolescence, is the show that many people are calling the savior for UPN. Why? Who knows... maybe because UPN is in desperate need of being saved? Let's not forget this is the network that gave us "Homeboys In Outerspace" in it's sophomore year.

So, I took the tape home, popped it in my VCR, and settled in for a little "Everybody Hates Chris." This was an enjoyable 22 minutes. I liked the look, I liked the cast, I liked the feel of the show, but it seemed familiar. It reminded me a smidge of "The Bernie Mac Show." Except, instead of having Bernie Mac talk directly to you from his chair, we get Chris Rock doing Voice-Overs from an ADR studio.

I found myself laughing out loud from time to time, but I also found myself looking at my watch a few times. So, as much as I was enjoying it, I kinda thought it dragged. Well, anyway, I still say it's a good show, and certainly UPN's best shot at wider exposure. However...

So, it's no big secret that, like, every sitcom on UPN is a black oriented program - or African American oriented if you're one of those people who get your panties all in a bunch when someone says "black." Anyway, after UPN picked up "Everybody Hates Chris" there was all this buzz about how this is gonna' be the next "The Cosby Show!" It's going to appeal to blacks and whites! All of America is going to fall in love with "Everybody Hates Chris!" Well, I just don't think so. Again, yes, it's a good show. Funny. Well written. All that. But here's the bottom line folks; "The Cosby Show" was a ridiculously huge hit, and yes, it did appeal to both black & white America. And yes, both Chris Rock and Bill Cosby are great comic minds. But the Huxtables were a rich black family in an upscale part of New York. Dad's a doctor. Mom's a Lawyer. White people could identify, or at least thought they could. In "Everybody Hates Chris," the Rock family lives in Brooklyn. Dad works two crappy jobs. Mom works one of her own. It's just not going to have the broad appeal that "The Cosby Show" had. Plus it's on UPN, who lest we forget, gave us "Homeboys in Outerspace."