TV

‘Girls’ romance is getting old

I’m a fan of “Girls” but not “The Hannah and Adam Show.”

Last season, HBO’s critically acclaimed show faded out on a moment that felt more Nicholas Sparks film-adaptation than premium cable comedy. Suffering from loneliness and OCD, Hannah (Lena Dunham) called her ex Adam (Adam Driver), who came running — shirtless and buff — through the mean streets of brownstone Brooklyn to save her from herself.

Season 3, which premieres Sunday on HBO, gets off to a similar start. We fade in Hannah and Adam in bed and intertwined in coupledom. The two are now living together, and while Adam doesn’t seem to be paying much rent, he makes sure Hannah takes her meds and stays relatively sane.

Elsewhere, the other “Girls” wake up in less domestic bliss. Marnie (Allison Williams), last seen happily hanging on the arm of her suddenly successful college boyfriend Charlie (Christopher Abbott), has been brutally dumped (Abbott left the show saying it wasn’t “relatable” to him on a personal level). She’s crash-landed on the couch of her mother (Rita Wilson), who administers brutal bouts of tough love, though without as many funny zingers as she’s had on past appearances.

Meanwhile Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) is on a precisely planned promiscuity rampage after dumping broody barista Ray (Alex Kapovsky). And wild-child divorcée Jessa (Jemima Kirke) has landed herself in rehab, where she’s the brutal bad girl of group therapy.

It’s not exactly funny stuff, or played for many laughs. A lot has happened since we last saw the girls, and the episode is slow and expository, even for a premiere. I found myself looking at Hannah’s apartment door, hoping her gay BFF Elijah (Andrew Rannells) would burst through with an eight ball and take her on a coke-fueled rampage, as he did in one of last season’s better episodes.

But Rannells doesn’t show. The most funny we get is when Amy Schumer appears as the friend of Natalia (Shiri Appleby), Adam’s ex whom he sexually degraded in last season’s most disturbing episode. Schumer’s character and Natalia have a confrontational run-in with Adam and Hannah, and it’s easily the premiere’s most energetic and amusing scene. It’s also incongruous with the rest of the episode, where the alone time with Hannah and Adam grows tiring.

They’re uncomfortable to be around; Adam complains about Hannah’s friends and vacillates between sweet and sinister, while Hannah demurs to him. Watching them feels like hanging out with an annoying, disturbing new couple — one where the domineering dude doesn’t always seem like the greatest boyfriend but your girlfriend seems so happy with him, you don’t dare say anything . . . nor do you look forward to the inevitable discord to come.

It’s more fun hanging out with some of the other girls — and Kapovsky’s Ray, who’s better without Shoshanna to soften him. Watching William’s prissy Marnie unravel is always amusing, especially with the ever-present threat that she might break out in embarrassing song. And, it’s great to have Kirke’s sharp-tongued Jessa back after she was absent for too much of last season; her witty, manic bluntness not there to provide a much needed foil to Hannah’s whiny, neurotic narcissism.

More of them please — and less of the Hannah and Adam show.