Review: ‘Benched’ is indefensibly cynical and not real funny

Though a little worn around the edges, there’s nothing wrong with the snobby-big-fish-finds-happiness-in-a-scummy-small-pond premise of USA’s new comedy “Benched.” Created by Michaela Watkins and Damon Jones, “Benched” chronicles the travails of Nina (Eliza Coupe), a corporate lawyer who, upon being denied an anticipated promotion, throws such a huge hissy fit she becomes unemployable except at the lowest level, i.e. the public defender’s office, where she must cope with her own elitism while learning a few Life Lessons.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with the cast — Coupe, a member of the recently disbanded “Happy Endings” ensemble, is a talented if hyper-tense comedian, and this public defender’s office is chock-full of fine performers, including Jay Harrington (“Better Off Ted”) and Oscar Nuñez (“The Office”).

If all this seems like a classic example of damning with faint praise, well, it is. “Benched” is nowhere near as funny as it thinks it is, mainly because Watkins and Jones seem to believe that the endless humiliations of a thin, attractive, previously well-compensated blond woman are all it takes to make people laugh.

Rich, attractive women and corporate lawyers have become standard piñatas in the world of television — by definition soulless and greedy, they deserve whatever they get. And, as the opening scene of “Benched” makes painfully clear, Nina, being both, is in for a double dose of “whatever.”

We meet her as she is being dumped by her boyfriend. Dabbing away the rivulets of mascara just in time to prepare for the announcement of her big promotion, she is floored when it goes to someone else. Someone else being a young woman, whom Nina, going into full-on woman-scorned hysteria, proceeds to publicly accuse of getting the job because of her large breasts and her affair with the boss.

Because that’s what a super-smart corporate lawyer would do: open herself up not only for a public firing but a potential lawsuit.

Having made herself infamous within her profession, she takes the only job she can find, in the public defender’s office. There Nina proceeds to make herself as offensive as possible to everyone, especially her new desk buddy Phil (Harrington), once a star, now a disillusioned underachiever. The current courtroom star, whom Nina now faces at trial, is (wouldn’t you know it because this day can’t get any worse) Nina’s former fiancé, Trent (Carter MacIntyre). Nina is still apparently powerless against his charms. She is also powerless in the legal department — for a crack corporate lawyer, she seems ill acquainted with the law and has to be slapped around by tough-talking intern Micah (Jolene Purdy) to perform the most basic tasks.

Bringing the self-absorbed pretty girl down a peg or seven can be funny — Katharine Hepburn built a career on it — but there’s a heartlessness to “Benched” that makes its premise seem not just overly familiar but cynical and more than occasionally mean. The sexism Nina initially rails against appears to be true, but she is the victim of the show’s ire. And though ambition is posed as her fatal flaw, Nina isn’t granted the natural resources of an achiever, much less an overachiever.

Comedy isn’t pretty, but it doesn’t have to be ruthless, and watching Coupe forced to play an 11th generation Private Benjamin, a woman so oblivious, elitist and tin-eared that it’s almost impossible to imagine her graduating from college much less law school, is just no fun at all.

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‘Benched’

Where: USA

When: 10:30 p.m. Tuesday

Rating: TV-14-DL (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14, with advisories for suggestive dialogue and coarse language)