A Funny Start for a Right Cad

Comedy pilots don’t get any funnier than Sunday’s “Bram and Alice” on CBS.

Nor do sitcom actors come more accomplished than its Tony-nominated male star, Alfred Molina, whose versatility runs from Shakespeare to broad TV comedy.

One of those rare Brits working on American TV as a Brit, Molina has had his prime-time clunkers, most notably as a badly miscast Hercule Poirot in a CBS remake of “Murder on the Orient Express.”

But here he’s a showstopper, thanks to writing by executive producers and “Frasier” alums Joe Keenan and Christopher Lloyd, direction from James Burrows, and Molina’s own precision timing and flare for comedy, at once physical and urbane.

“Bram and Alice” is more evidence that even the stalest of sitcom premises--the disruptive move-in by a relative--can seem fresh when executed with skill. In this case, big laughs are generated by ample helpings of caustic wit.

Compare it with two of this season’s charmless new comedies that have already aired. We’ve seen Uncle Bill and his sniffy butler reluctantly take in his nephew and two nieces on the WB’s “Family Affair,” and a teenager turning her older sister’s life topsy-turvy on the same network’s “What I Like About You.”

Much higher on this food chain is “Bram and Alice,” with aspiring writer Alice O’Connor (Traylor Howard) rooming with on-the-skids once-celebrated novelist Bram Shepherd (Molina) after he learns she is his daughter from a one-night fling he had all but forgotten. A mid-50s drunken lothario with a glib line, he instinctively tries to seduce her before discovering who she is and lets her move into his swanky Manhattan apartment only because she agrees to share costs.

Molina is an effortless cad, epitomizing the “one-hit wonder who can’t even pay his rent” described here by his loyal assistant (Roger Bart). He’s ably supported by Howard, and there are two other characters here with potential. One is a neighbor (Katie Finneran), the other a barkeep (Michael Rispoli) who quit the priesthood, he explains while ogling a gorgeous woman, when “I just found myself praying for the wrong things.”

Premieres, often gleaming hood ornaments, can be unreliable as previews of the full chassis, and it remains to be seen where the producers will take Bram. If the writing falls off dramatically, he’ll become a one-night wonder.

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“Bram and Alice” will air at 8:30 p.m. Sundays on CBS. The network has rated it TV-PGL (may be unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for coarse language).

Howard Rosenberg can be contacted at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com