Picks and Pans Review: The Trouble with Larry

CBS Wednesdays, 8 p.m. ET)

C

In his new sitcom, Bronson Pinchot (Perfect Strangers) plays a man who was dragged off into the jungle on his honeymoon night by “a pack of rogue baboons” a decade ago and presumed dead. He returns to civilization to find his wife (Shanna Reed) living in Syracuse, married to a stuffy yuppie (Perry King). Well, at least Reed’s younger sister (Courteney Cox Arquette) is cute.

The anarchic pilot featured batty badinage. “This coffee smells marvelous,” Pinchot says. “You know, when I lived in Kenya, I crushed my own beans every morning.” “Did you try wearing boxer shorts?” Cox replies.

But once Pinchot is nestled in the family bosom, it’s clear he can’t come home again. By the second episode the show is mired in dreary domesticity. The plot revolves around Pinchot helping the show’s adolescent (Alex McKenna) with her science project, and the humor has gone from flip to flop. Too bad. Pinchot has a silly energy, and the other actors have sitcom flair—particularly Cox, much improved since Family Ties. Unless the baboons return, though, or something interesting happens, the whole cast is in big trouble with Larry.