One Yuk, One Yuck Added to Comedy Class

The Nielsens may not always show it (as if they can be trusted), but this has been a fine season for TV comedies that are still wobbling on toddler legs.

I wheezed myself into an asthmatic fit Wednesday night in front of “The Bernie Mac Show” on Fox. I began the evening watching the Winter Olympics but couldn’t take the slapstick. Instead, I opted for prime-time newcomer Bernie Mac, a stand-up comic turned-sitcom star who is almost criminally funny.

NBC’s new “Scrubs” still has juice, meanwhile. And the distinctive humor of “Undeclared,” Fox’s half-hour about college freshmen, remains a joy on Tuesday nights, even though its dicey ratings (less than 7 million viewers last week) have it sweating out renewal for a second season. Inventive series with original characters that elevate TV shouldn’t have to scratch and claw for survival, but that’s the business.

On Showtime, “The Chris Isaak Show” remains as loosey-goosey smart and funny as ever, by the way, while somehow operating below the radar of most TV observers.

And returning to the Family Channel for a second season Friday is charming “State of Grace,” the wittiest, most edifying slice of 1960s culture this side of “The Wonder Years.”

Now bring on the higher-profile comedies that NBC’s triple lutzes relentlessly promoted during the Winter Games.

Arriving Tuesday is the Julia Louis-Dreyfus comedy that the industry and “Seinfeld” fanatics (like yours truly) have been awaiting after the failures of her former co-stars, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards, to recapture the magic in shows of their own.

And Thursday brings “Leap of Faith,” a derivative comedy about four friends in New York that, despite being taped at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, tries desperately to be “Sex and the City.” That’s the peerless HBO series on which “Leap of Faith” creator Jenny Bicks worked as a producer and writer.

NBC’s version is Sex and the Back Lot.

Skill notwithstanding, success in one series does not necessarily translate to another. “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David is the only one of its alumni to go on to a series even approaching that comedy’s luster--witness his often-hilarious “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO.

However, if you’re sold on the gifted Louis-Dreyfus and her impeccable comic timing and instincts--read brilliant--you’ll probably like “Watching Ellie.” It’s smooth and seductive, delivering few huge laughs in its first two episodes but offering a world-class romp compared with those earlier stinkers from Alexander and Richards. They seemed to have no sense of what would work for them once severed from their “Seinfeld” umbilical cord.

Not Louis-Dreyfus. Her show ranges from broad (an overflowing toilet has Ellie slipping and sliding while dressing for a club date in the premiere) to the kind of subtle wit that a laugh track would overwhelm. Good news: It doesn’t have one.

Created and written by her husband, Brad Hall, and directed grandly by Ken Kwapis, the single-camera series has Louis-Dreyfus as a Los Angeles lounge singer who is having a fling with her British guitar player (Darren Boyd) while barely tolerating her irritating ex-boyfriend (Steve Carell). She also has regular phone chats with her sister (Louis-Dreyfus’ real sister, Lauren Bowles).

The show’s second banana is her apartment super, a broad but funny Swede named Ingvar (Peter Stormare, who played the stony, mute killer in “Fargo”).

He plays big. When she runs to him in a panic about her toilet, he assures her it’s no problem. “Flood? Am I a plumber? Tool kit!” Then he peeks at her as she puts on her dress.

The second episode finds Ellie and Ingvar collaborating on some appealing nonsense at a wedding when she misplaces a song the bride is counting on her to sing.

Each episode is supposed to represent 22 minutes in Ellie’s life. That’s nice, but an ever-present clock on the side of the screen is a gimmick that should be dropped. Otherwise, this show has a very nice comfort level. Best of all, it feels fresh.

“Leap of Faith” doesn’t.

The cutesy title is a play on the name of its main character, Faith Wardwell (Sarah Paulson), who is inseparable from her sleep-around ad agency colleague, Patty (Lisa Edelstein), her married neighbor Cynthia (Regina King) and skirt-chasing Andy (Ken Marino), a straight male whose raging libido is inexplicably immune to his good-looking female pals. A guy who spends his time at a table schmoozing about romance with these fetching women, and nothing is stirring? What’s his story?

Fault NBC for scheduling something this bawdy at kiddie-accessible 8:30. There’s a triple dose of “whore” talk in the premiere, and Faith is under the sheets with a guy before the first commercial break.

This episode finds her getting cold feet about her strait-laced fiance (Bradley White), then sleeping with an actor (Brad Rowe, a near ringer for Brad Pitt, but even prettier) she auditioned for a commercial.

The males here are rather absurd. That’s so even though Faith’s tryst leads to the premiere’s only sharply written scene, when she shocks the chirpy crowd at her wedding shower by guiltily blurting out that she cheated on her fiance with an actor.

Faith: “I carried my underwear home in my bag on the C train.”

A friend: “You slept with an actor?”

Her socialite mother (Jill Clayburgh): “You rode the subway?”

Faith begins returning her wedding gifts in the second episode, which has fewer memorable moments even than the premiere.

“Leap of Faith” offers no sense of Manhattan or urban life, in contrast to New York-based “Sex and the City,” whose nubby texture is nearly as pleasurable as its comedy, and whose central character, Carrie Bradshaw, also got the marriage jitters and dumped her more conservative fiance. What’s more, Carrie’s friend, Samantha, beat Faith’s friend, Patty, to the Holy Grail of “great, mindless sex” by several seasons. So much for originality.

One break: No electronic laughter. In fact, not much laughter at all.

*

“Watching Ellie” premieres Tuesday night at 8:30, and “Leap of Faith” premieres Thursday night at 8:30, both on NBC. The network has rated both programs TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).

*

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg @latimes.com.