You know how every network pilot has to open with the fake sex scene with the female lead sporting a giant bra outfit?
Well on Sunday night’s premiere of ABC’s new dramedy “Scoundrels,” it’s what you don’t see that sets it apart from every other fake network sex scene.
What you won’t see is the actor who was first cast as the husband, Neal McDonough, who quit rather than have fake sex with his TV wife, Virginia Madsen.
I don’t know how good McDonough would have been as Wolf West, charming husband, felon and father of a petty crime family, but David James Elliott, who took his place, has such good chemistry with Madsen that they lift the mundane to something higher — or lower — depending on what you think of petty crime families.
The show, based on a hit New Zealand series, begins with an idiotic expository dialogue but grows into something better.
Wolf is on his way to being sentenced to five years — just as one of his twin sons, Logan (Patrick John Flueger), is getting admitted to the California Bar. (Not a bar but the Bar.)
Wolf leaves behind his criminal wife, Cheryl (Madsen), and their larcenous other-kids, Logan’s dopey identical twin, Cal (also played by Flueger), his seemingly moronic oldest daughter Heather (Leven Rambin) and brainy youngest, Hope (Vanessa Marano).
Since Logan is busy now being a civil servant, dad declares that the crown must pass to stupid Cal. Wolf tells his wife that she doesn’t “have the balls for it.” Instead of kicking him in his, she proves him right and cries. What is this — New Zealand?
Anyway, after a funny bungled house robbery in which Logan gets his butt karate-kicked by an old Chinese lady, a Tong gang member, mom realizes that without dad, the family business is bust. I hate this part — OK? They have to go good and straight.
I would have preferred the whole crime family thing, but there could be some good laughs as the family attempts to work at legit jobs. It probably won’t be as funny as breaking-and-entering, but I’ll give it two more weeks to decide whether good will be good — or bad.