Respect Authority

Jenna Elfman sucks at dating. Just when we all thought we were safe from randomly debilitating replays of Dharma & Greg, arguably one of television’s more ridiculous forays into the great wide world of mediocre comedy as a product of unlikely coupling (see Will and Grace, King of Queens and The Nanny), CBS is getting ready to debut tonight Accidentally on Purpose, a new show starring Elfman as a 30-something movie critic who gets pregnant after having a one-night affair with a man named Zack, and subsequently decides to keep both the baby and the new boyfriend around – indefinitely.

If you’re thinking this sounds familiar, you should be. Who can forget how utterly witty and modern it seemed when Elfman as Dharma married Greg after a single date and the two proceeded to plod through what ultimately became a fairly boring marriage, with the exception being their respectively hilarious parents.

According to Wikipedia, Billie (Elfman) and Zack decide to live together platonically, and hijinks ensue as the two come to the obvious conclusion that living platonically with the other half of your life-changing one-night-stand makes thing like dating, friendship, or normal day-to-day existence pretty hard. I’m picturing that season of Will & Grace where Grace decides she wants to have a baby with Will, and we’re all really happy for them and their gay-friendly decision-making until it becomes clear that platonic friend-babies, even hypothetical ones, aren’t as fun when there’s not even the remote possibility of their parents having drunken sex one night after a fight over diaper genies. Moreover, this plotline fizzles out after approximately nine months, at which point all of the hilarity of shared living space takes a backseat to the fact that these two will ostensibly have a real live baby to care for.

So I’m sorry Jenna, but this ship has sailed. Multiple times, and we know it ends up in one of two places: the no-man’s land of boring finales, where even the suggested union of Will and Grace’s respective children wasn’t enough to get the sour taste of our mouths, or the totally predictable island of happily ever after, where Ross and Rachael are probably shacked up right now.

Unfortunately, without the star power of Jennifer Aniston, or the scene-savers that were W&G’s Karen and Jack, Accidentally on Purpose is poised to accidentally suck by making poor and predictable plot choices, on purpose.