Entertainment

Smarty ‘Pants’

Now that “Jersey Shore” is becoming faker than its tans, less spontaneous than a fight on “Jerry Springer” and more gratingly goomba than ever before, you might be ready for smart again.

At least MTV is taking no chances — and with “Jersey Shore’s” ratings sinking faster than The Situation’s muscles without juice — maybe it is time.

Enter “I Just Want My Pants Back,” from David J. Rosen’s novel of the same name, about four 20-something Brooklyn hipsters (is there any other city where people are allowed to be hipsters anymore?) finding their way in the world.

It centers on Jason Strider (Peter Vack), who works in a casting agency but feels he’s going nowhere, so he quits so that he can go nowhere even faster. He dreams of being a music writer but seems to have no qualifications other than that he likes bands.

His best friend is Web designer Tina (Kim Shaw), who has huge amounts of meaningless sex with guys she could care less about and gets drunk and high with Jason whenever she can — which seems to be every night.

The other couple is in-love-and-living-together medical students Stacey (Elizabeth Hower) and Eric (Jordan Carlos).

Carlos, who may turn out to be the breakout star of the series, is, in real life, an “alternative comic” — who even in this not-alternate reality is very funny.

The real problem with the series — which sneak-peak premiered in August after the VMAs but starts in regular weekly rotation tonight — is that every character in this shaky, single-camera show is beyond clever and beyond jaded.

Shaw’s Tina snarks in place of normal speech. In one interview, the actress says that what she loves best about her character is that she’s never, ever at a loss for the perfect dirty quip and quickie comeback.

But it’s annoying. I mean seriously?

The dialogue is much raunchier than the actual action shown — thank God — because sometimes the dialogue is so gross it’s not even funny.

I mean, I really don’t want to hear a woman tell a man — during quickie pickup sex at a party yet — where he needs to stick his finger. Yikes, or maybe that’s yuck.

Some of this show is funny, but you may want to put paper down on your couch to keep you from catching an STD.