‘Leap Years’ Can Be Good Fun, but a Bit Confusing

Showtime’s new “Leap Years” is easier to like--its New York characters are young, attractive, mildly interesting and have lots of good sex, after all--than track.

There’s something to be said for stories that peel back layers outside the usual linear chronology. The seductively weird “Memento” starts suspensefully at the end and finishes at the beginning, for example, as did “Betrayal,” a 1982 film written by Harold Pinter, its reverse narrative providing a context for insights that would not have been possible if presented the conventional way.

“Leap Years” moves backward and forward in three stages that are largely disorienting, however. The two-hour premiere opens at a tumultuous East Village party in 1993 before flashing forward to 2001, then back to 1993, then forward to 2001, then forward again to 2008, then back to 1993, and so on and so on.

Having the audience know what’s ahead for the characters before they do edges their lives with a certain poignancy.

But some of this time machine stuff seems almost arbitrary, and because no one here appears to age or grow younger across this two-way arc of years, it takes a while after each time shift to sort out which stage the story is in.

Think weekly soap opera. We meet 25-ish close friends Athena Barnes (Michelle Hurd) when she’s a struggling singer, Joe Rivera (Bruno Campos) when he is an ambitious young lawyer on the rise, Josh Adler (David Julian Hirsh) when he is bitter about his real estate tycoon father and Gregory Paget (Garret Dillahunt) when he’s an aspiring filmmaker. When schoolteacher Beth Greenway (Nina Garbiras) pops into their lives, Joe’s and Josh’s eyes pop out at her.

Then they’re off: Athena toward a dazzling singing career (despite a minimal voice), Joe toward a high-profile law career and marriage with Beth, Josh toward frustration while paying hookers $400 a night and pining for Beth, Gregory toward life as a critic and uncloseted homosexual and Beth toward motherhood and playing second fiddle to Joe’s career.

Then it’s 2008, and much has changed. Then they’re off again, in reverse.

No one here is demon-free. Self-serving Joe is the least admirable of the group and Gregory the sanest (and blandest). Drugs enter the picture. Blindness enters the picture. Orgasms enter the picture ... repeatedly. Poor Athena is so ravenous for sex, in fact, that a few minutes after a stranger on the street tells her, “I seen you sing, pretty thing,” they’re under the sheets.

That happens in 1993. Or is it 2008? Or 2001? In any case, time flies when you’re having such fun.

“Leap Years” can be seen Sundays at 10 p.m. on Showtime. The network has rated it TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children younger than 14).