‘Living in Captivity’ Visits an Old, Old Neighborhood

The setting for “Living in Captivity” is treeless Woodland Heights, a middle-class tract in the suburbs where row after row of look-alike two-story houses, unencumbered by greenery, are inhabited only by whites. So who should move in, creating utter havoc? Blacks!!!

There go the property values, bemoans bigoted Carmine Santucci (Lenny Venito), who lives next door to the newcomers with his wife, Lisa (Mia Cottet), and keeps his Sherman tank of an RV parked out front as a monument to his materialism.

Yikes! Didn’t we already slosh through this in the ‘70s with Norman Lear’s “All in the Family,” whose bold concept and superior writing and cast earned it prominence in the annals of historic television?

Apparently not to the satisfaction of Diane English and Joel Shukovsky (“Murphy Brown”), who created this dopey, hackneyed, unfunny brick of a Fox comedy that is a near twin of ABC’s upcoming new sitcom “The Hughleys.”

The new couple is Curtis Cooke (Dondre Whitfield) and his very pregnant wife, Tamara (Kira Arne), whose incursion into this pale-faced enclave has the white-flight Carmine in a snit and accusing Curtis of swiping his barbecue. Just as knee-jerk on the liberal side are the Cookes’ other closest neighbors, novelist Will Marek (Matt Letscher) and his attorney wife, Becca (Melinda McGraw). But the Mareks’ neighborliness appears to backfire when Will has to admit to himself that he has his own biases against Curtis.

This looks like a guy show. The white males here are especially overstated, from Carmine’s boorish, nouveau middle-class small-businessman to Will’s stereotypical guilt-ridden liberal, as he plays Mike Stivic to Carmine’s Archie Bunker. Because this is a comedy, moreover, the racism here is benign--all-talk-and-no-action, go-for-the-cheap-punch-line racism that trivializes the real thing without even the benefit of being witty.

In the real world, there would be no basis for a friendship between Will and the uncouth, prejudiced Carmine, who not only demeans blacks but also dislikes Will’s wife because she’s a lawyer and Jewish. But “Living in Captivity” offers no world that’s recognizable.

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* “Living in Captivity” premieres at 8 tonight on Fox (Channel 11). The network has rated it TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for coarse language).