Fall without fail

Every fall without fail, TV gives us a handful of what I like to call "mystery" series. It's a mystery how they ever claimed a spot on the new prime-time schedule over other pilots and some very good series that got canceled the previous season. It's a mystery how they can be expected to attract a curious audience with virtually no advance promotion or hype. And even though they may be oddly sweet or interestingly cast, it's an absolute baffler how they'll possibly survive the ratings wars past Thanksgiving.

Such a series makes its debut tonight, the mysterious new family comedy Suburgatory at 8:30 p.m. on ABC (Channel 7 in Detroit). A familiar twist on the strange-girl-in-a-stranger-land premise, the sitcom stars Jeremy Sisto (whose crooked smile and gentle manner I realized I'd missed since the premature demise of Law & Order) as George, an architect and single father who spies a box of condoms — unopened, it should be noted — on the nightstand of his teenage daughter, Tessa (newcomer Jane Levy, fresh from Showtime's Shameless), and immediately whisks her from Manhattan to the manicured lawns of suburbia in order to remove her from such carnal temptations. 

Yeah, like that's going to do it.

Does George overreact? What do you think? It would take a lot more than that to get most architects out of New York City! But that major plot loophole is quickly forgotten as Tessa attempts to navigate the bizarre customs and creatures of the cul-de-sac. "Pretty ironic," Tessa deadpans, "that a box full of rubbers landed me in a town full of plastic."

Her new high school pairs Tessa with a "buddy," an ultra-cool, dead-eyed coed named Dalia (Carly Chalkin) to show her the ropes. OK, let's play a game: the elements of Suburgatory remind us of how many other previous projects? I can think of Mean Girls, Daria, Juno and Desperate Housewives without straining my brain. Now you add some more. There's even another new show this season with the same basic construct, The CW's Hart of Dixie. Somehow you get the feeling that when ABC bigwigs land on a monster hit like the sublime sitcom Modern Family, they just got lucky. Mostly you sense that they don't get out enough.

The show is saddled with an invented name that some percentage of TV junkies won't be able to pronounce. (Except in the Bible Belt, where they know all too well about purgatory.) History suggests that cutesy, made-up titles don't usually fare well in prime-time competition. And compared to ABC's blockbuster fall hopefuls like Pan Am or Charlie's Angels, how many on-air promos or print ads have you seen for Suburgatory? I rest my case.

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