Review: 'The Army Show'

Every new fall season brings at least one new series so jaw-dropping bad, so amazingly inept that it seems as if the only possible way the show could have gotten on the air is if the producers had pictures of some network executive sleeping with a chicken.

I mean, some shows are so bad that mere blackmail can't explain its spot in primetime. No matter what crime you've committed, when you're looking at hard time or publicly proclaiming, "I think Pauley Shore should have a sitcom," the road to prison seems a much sweeter choice.

Which is my way of saying that I cannot fathom what motivated anyone to green light this horrific sitcom. It's a dumb idea, wrapped in clumsy acting, inside a flaccid script. If you can't tell yet, I loathe this sitcom.

"The Army Show" is a sitcom set on an Army base, and there we have the first problem. In long-ago sitcoms like "Sgt. Bilko" or "McHale's Navy," the military setting made some sort of sense. There was a compulsory military draft, and it followed that for those people who didn't want to be a soldier, they'd figure out all sorts of schemes to kill time until they could go back to civilian life.

But this a volunteer army nowadays, and it's not exactly what you would call a high-paying profession. So the thought that people would join the military thinking that it was a profitable financial move seems farfetched at best.

And worse yet, the writing of this pilot episode is absolutely devoid of humor, wit or entertainment value. There's not one line that seems real, in character or slightly amusing.

But in the end, what really destroys the show is the consistently inept acting. David Anthony Higgins (ELLEN) plays the sergeant of a group of misfit soldiers who are enjoying themselves at an army base that was scheduled to be closed until the military lost track of it. The base commander (played by John Camponera), is a golf-playing feeb, and there are is the usual assortment of geeky smart guys, tough sexy women, and gullible southern doofuses.

All of this *fun* threatens to go down the drain when a convicted computer hacker (played by MTV's John Sencio), is sentenced to four years in the military and finds himself at the base, and drawing unwanted attention to our group. Sencio may be the most annoying cast member, smirking his way through every scene with this smug yet dumb look that comes across like a mixture of Denis Leary and the Rainman.

Obviously, I'm not the only person who suspects this show won't be around for long, since the WB debuted this show opposite the Emmys and the CBS airing of GOOD FELLAS. In other words, they're not expecting anyone to want to watch it either.

THE CAST:
David Anthony Higgins
John Sencio
Toby Huss
Craig Anton
Harold Sylvester
Valerie Dillman
Brian Posehn
Brian Doyle-Murray as Mayor Buddy
Wayne Tippit as The Judge
Dennis Cockrum as Roy
Rebecca McFarland as Christine
Nicole Nieth as Marjorie