Review: 'Fired Up'

NBC is turning into the Chubby Checker of network television. Chubby had one hit--"The Twist"--and then trotted out an endless procession of lesser efforts. By that reckoning, if you start with "Friends" as the baseline hit, Sharon Lawrence's new sitcom is dipping into "Limbo Twist" territory. It's a lifeless, clumsy look at a character who I wouldn't spend two minutes talking with at a party if everyone else in the room was a member of the Osmond family.

"Fired Up" is from Kelsey Grammer's production company, and it aches for acceptance and love with a ferocity you generally only see in trophy wives.

Sharon Lawrence ("NYPD Blue") plays a self-absorbed PR woman who is fired, along with her enabling assistant (Leah Remini). And that's pretty much it. Oh, there's a marginal plotline about how hard it is for her to adjust to her new life, but I frankly couldn't care less about any of it. In the end, Lawrence moves in with Remini and her brother and they're off to start a new PR business. Yawn.

This is a frustrating show to sit through, because there is a lot of raw comedic talent here. Lawrence does well with a character that seems better suited to someone else, and Remini infuses her acting with equal parts of bitterness and gullibility. But it's all buried under the weight of a script that just lays there like a drunk sorority girl at 2am. And not to be overly obsessive, but remember when sitcoms included actual "com" with the "sit"? The pilot had exactly *one* funny exchange, between Lawrence and her assistant(who at that point had found a job selling meat over the phone).

Lawrence: "What's that bell?"

Remini: "It means another cow just got it's wings."

Forget "Must See TV".... this just reminds me that I need to go read another book.