Two Comedies That Hit Close to Home

For reasons unknown, some of the tangiest prime-time comedies surface at midseason. Extending that tradition are NBC’s wisecracking new “Three Sisters” and Fox’s funnier, more promising “Grounded for Life.”

Both have good pedigrees, tonight’s “Three Sisters” coming from Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline (“Ellen,” “Roseanne” and “Murphy Brown”) and Wednesday’s “Grounded for Life” from Bill Martin and Mike Schiff (“3rd Rock From the Sun” and “In Living Color”).

Be prepared not to laugh initially, for each comedy plays its strongest cards in subsequent episodes. Present and past parents of teenage girls, notably, may find Week 2 of “Grounded for Life” a royal pain in the funny bone, their delight spun from the show’s wicked humor, their discomfort coming from having to relive the angst of experiences they’d rather forget.

The siblings of “Three Sisters” are Bess (Katherine LaNasa), Annie (A.J. Langer) and Nora (Vicki Lewis), a defining character whose sharp-tongued retorts--ranging from caustic to nasty--set up the show’s straight lines, which flow mostly to her, as in this exchange after the sisters get massages together:

“Nora, do you have to smoke?”

“Sorry. I was lying down, I was in pain. I thought I had sex.”

They fight, they hug; that’s why they call them sisters. This trio might as well be aliens from separate planets, though. Eldest is the very pregnant Bess, a junior Martha Stewart living what Nora calls a “picture-perfect yuppie fantasia” with her protective husband, Steven (David Alan Basche). The single, dilettantish Annie is the youngest and shallowest, and Nora, correctly titled a “black cloud,” is divorced and just back from two years in Africa. Their rollerblading mother (Dyan Cannon) is a former Playboy Bunny, and their father (Peter Bonerz) is the family’s loosest goose.

“Three Sisters” has some moments: Bess and Nora having Barbie issues to resolve, Nora’s three years of unscheduled sexual abstinence and the family’s crowding into the delivery room on Bess’ big day. Just as acidic Nora is the show’s biggest laugh in initial episodes, though, a very little of her goes a very long way, a conundrum “Three Sisters” may not be able to overcome.

Unless its premiere is more typical than Episode 1, meanwhile, “Grounded for Life” has a bright future, creatively. While watching it, you’re thinking Fox’s “Malcolm in the Middle,” so original and fluidly oddball are its characters in an environment drawn essentially from reality.

This is the Finnerty family, and the grounding applies to 14-year-old Lily (Lynsey Bartilson), ever raging and resistant to attempts by her parents, Sean (Donal Logue) and Claudia (Megyn Price), to convert her to benign adolescence. Naturally, they’re overmatched by her and their failure is assured, something real-life parents will immediately find credible.

Sean and Claudia are dysfunctional themselves, of course, as are Sean’s quasi-resident brother, Eddie (Kevin Corrigan), trapped in spatial limbo between infancy and adulthood, and their hard-line father, Walt (Richard Riehle). Meanwhile, the Finnertys’ two young sons (Griffin Frazen and Jake Burbage) turn the house topsy-turvy.

Communicating in part through flashbacks, “Grounded for Life” is a comedy bipolar in its extremes, as in the premiere’s brighter moments (eyeballing Claudia’s abundant sexuality) being eclipsed by the slapstick of Sean going berserk over Lily’s hanging out with a nerdy neighbor boy.

Yet the cast is very good and the second episode a big, fat high-five of a bull’s-eye as Lily’s nosy parents make the mistake of going behind her back and sneaking into that consecrated, off-limits pubescent sanctuary otherwise known as . . .

HER ROOM!!!!

Tell me this isn’t a documentary.

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* “Three Sisters” premieres tonight at 9:30 on NBC. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).

* “Grounded for Life” premieres Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. on Fox. The network has rated it TV-PG-DS (may be unsuitable for young children, with special advisories for suggestive dialogue and sexual situations).

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Forget the Stereotypes

* Producers of “Three Sisters” insist it’s not just a “chick” show. F10