Promising premises are left unfulfilled

By Robert Lloyd

Sept. 16, 2003 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

UPN, a network not heretofore (nor soon to be) noted for its situation comedies, premieres two tonight: “All of Us” and “Rock Me Baby.” Both are founded upon solid enough premises, yet what has been constructed upon them is prefab and insubstantial. Each settles for standard situations, wan jokes, “outrageousness,” fuzzy warmth and a little sex.

“All of Us” arrives under the celebrity aegis of producers Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith, who long ago were themselves simple sitcom stars, and whose own domestic situation loosely inspired the series: The relationship of TV entertainment reporter Robert James Sr. (Duane Martin), his fiancee, Tia (Elise Neal), and his ex-wife, Neesee (LisaRaye), who must learn to get along for the sake of the former couple’s child, Robert Jr. (Khamani Griffin).

The portrayal of the ex-wife exemplifies the show’s essential weakness: Though LisaRaye is given a few human moments and is allowed to say that her ex-husband’s career-mindedness might have had something to do with the end of their marriage -- to which he is allowed to respond, “Excuse me for selfishly trying to provide for my family” -- she is otherwise a cardboard figure in a schematically arrayed world. It’s a stacked deck. You can tell she’s bad by the cut of her dress and the size of her earrings. She slinks into her first scene like Cruella De Vil coming for the puppies. Neal, meanwhile, is Betty to her Veronica -- a morally upright kindergarten teacher, dreaming only of her wedding day.

This, of course, may change. But given that competition is funnier than cooperation, and based on the evidence of tonight’s pilot, one might expect the series to unroll as a kind of extended catfight, laced with scenes of male complaint and saccharine effusions of parental love. Pinkett Smith reportedly created the series (with “Friends” alumna Betsy Borns) upon noticing that there was nothing on television “that reflects anything that deals with divorce, nothing for kids to be able to watch that they could say, ‘That’s how I feel’....”

But it’s hard to imagine the child, even the neediest child of the most awful divorce, who would actually sit through this show, which is as yet concerned almost entirely with the territorial markings of merely chronological adults.

“Rock Me Baby” opens with Dan Cortese, as Jimmy, a drive-time “shock jock” and new father, trying to seduce his wife, Beth (Bianca Kajlich). What with the pre- and postpartum, they have not had sex in five months -- the very worst thing that happens to a sitcom character under the age of 40. His entreaties are couched in a series of euphemisms (moving from real estate to sports) that, even euphemistically, are too graphic to print in a family paper. You will either have to use your imagination or tune in. On the whole, I would recommend that you use your imagination.

There is also a party gone out of bounds -- a scenario pictured among the cave drawings at Lascaux, I believe -- at which beer is chugged from baby bottles and a stripper displays a maternal streak. A man named Boyle (Joey Slotnick, as Cortese’s abrasive boss) is compared, on the radio, to a boil. Breasts are called “sweater puppies.”

Cortese, who broke into the collective conscious as the host of MTV Sports and has since worked fitfully in series including “Route 66” and “Veronica’s Closet,” is an actor of moderately limited range, with nothing to recommend him as a TV star besides good looks, broad shoulders and an amiable presence. (He is a sort of poor man’s John Corbett.) But actors not much more technically gifted -- Ray Romano, say -- have made much better sitcom leads, because they have interesting tics; Cortese has none, and is constantly, if subtly, upstaged by his fellow players, most notably Carl Anthony Payne (late of “Martin”), as his partner and best friend.

Cortese would be aided immeasurably, of course, by a part worth playing in a show more interested in exploring, even humorously, the ideas its premise (and any episode of “The Howard Stern Show”) suggests -- such as the consequences of selling one’s intimate life as cheap public entertainment, or knowing where a character stops and the authentic self begins. (Stern’s marriage fell apart. All that happens here is minor pique, quick forgiveness and mom’s realization that it is a fine thing to have a “hottie for a husband who watches the baby while you go out and get drunk and horny.”)

There’s a good series to be built on this foundation, but it probably won’t come with a laugh track, or any of the above.

UPN premieres

‘All of Us’

Where: UPN

When: Tuesdays, 8:30-9 p.m.; premieres tonight

Rating: The network has rated the show TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for coarse language).

Duane Martin...Robert James Sr.

Elise Neal...Tia Jewel

LisaRaye...Neesee James

Khamani Griffin...Robert James Jr.

Tony Rock...Dirk Black

Created by Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith and Betsy Borns. Executive Producers, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, Borns and James Lassiter.