I STAND corrected.
A few weeks ago, in an earlier column, I wrote an impassioned plea for readers to keep an open mind about the ABC sitcom “Cavemen,” which was already being savaged by other, less-intuitive critics based on an earlier pilot the network sent out in the summer.
I happened to love the pilot and felt at the time that, if given a chance, “Cavemen” could evolve into the bedrock of ABC’s new Tuesday-night lineup.
Instead, after watching the premiere episode last night (an episode that was not the pilot), it became clear to me that “Cavemen” is extinct on arrival.
With a title like “Cavemen,” I expected wild comedy, but I quickly discovered that these cavemen had been tamed.
In the show, three hairy cave dudes share an apartment, but not a cave, in San Diego, where they argue, play video games and go to bars in search of women.
Last night’s conflict had to do with one of them, well-meaning Joel (Bill English), dating a pretty blonde (Kaitlin Doubleday) who was not a cavewoman, a relationship that is apparently frowned upon by some members of the caveman community.
Or, as Joel’s militantly pro-caveman roommate, Nick (Nick Kroll), put it last night: “Keep your penis in your genus.”
Look, I realize cavemen can be primitive, but I never knew they could be crude, too.
Despite Nick’s carrying-on about the differences between cavemen and homo sapiens, the cavemen of “Cavemen” don’t seem all that different from anybody else.
They’re just not very well-groomed, a condition easily cured with a shave and a haircut.
In addition, when it comes to relationships with the opposite sex, these cavemen are nothing like the cavemen of legend who courted their females with brute force.
Last night, one of them, Andy (Sam Huntington) – younger brother of Joel – was in the midst of breaking up with an unseen girlfriend named Susan.
The breakup had turned into Andy into a whimpering bowl of jelly – a far cry from his hardy ancestors who discovered fire and, as legend has it, invented the wheel.
I’m not sure what went wrong in the process of adapting the Geico commercials for a 30-minute sitcom, but I thought it would be easy – so easy, in fact, that a caveman could have done it.
“Cavemen”
Tuesdays, 8 p.m., ABC