Dying is Easy, Three: This Time It's Personal.

What do we do about comedy? Seriously?

It's a question much on the minds of mandarins and networkies everywhere. This season, we've already had a half hour, How I Met Your Mother, that's noteworthy for the fact that a show that's marginal-at-best can be seriously overpraised now, just cause the field is so anemic. A couple years ago, Two and a Half Men filled that psychic sweet spot. The reality is that the mighty half-hour comedy engine has been sputtering diesel oil and PCB's for several seasons now.

There are shows that solidly deliver laughs, of course...Scrubs, for one. Nobody's really watching. Arrested was a gutbuster. Ditto. There's Earl and The Office staking out Thursdays on NBC, but they're a long way in the ratings from those glory days of Cheers and Seinfeld. Now, Will & Grace is gone too.

In Canada, it's worse. Corner Gas. Maybe Trailer Park Boys. That's it. Jerry Seinfeld once famously observed, "I'm not sure comedy wants to be a movie." Well, it certainly doesn't seem to be too horny for TV these days, either.

So out of this comes a vague hope: ape Curb. Bravo in the U.S. had a bit of luck with Significant Others -- a show I haven't seen -- so the new rage is partially scripted. Hey, why not? The shows aren't working. Must be all the writers. Let's throw them out and see how we do.

Except, of course, Larry David is a writer. Some might be cheeky and say the writer. I've never been as much of a fan of Curb as some, but there's no denying that it's funny. That ensemble is talented, and tight. I'm not sure it's a trend that can transfer -- and even if it can, it's not the magic bullet to cure comedy. Anyone who's suffered through an entire improv "show" can tell you that.

So now a couple of mid-season U.S. shows are clinging to the partially scripted come on as a possible defribulator -- a much needed shock-to-the-heart of the moribund state of television comedy in North America.

How are they doing?

Well the first two candidates are Free Ride and Sons & Daughters. I must say that the promos for Sons & Daughters are certainly funny. But FOX got out of the gate first with its semi-scripted Free Ride, which bowed last night after American Idol -- predictably, to great post-Idol ratings. Ryan Seacrest, ladies and gentleman -- the most important tastemaker in America. Brrrrr.

Free Ride doesn't have anything close to an original premise: guy returns from college and moves back in with his parents, whilst trying to romance a high school crush who's recently engaged. Shades of Ed, Garden State, Get a Life, and half a dozen other workmanlike concepts through the years. He's got a jerky mullet-headed sidekick, much mirth is made of his parents' attempts to have sex and get along. The whole thing actually comes off as reasonably joyless -- and that's with a very likable cast trying really hard. Josh Dean and Erin Cahill are cute, and diverting. And the shaggy rhythm of improvisation means that it's not labored like the worst of the clone-sitcoms we've seen for the last few years. But as for the central conceit, there's a commercial that runs here right now in Ontario that covers the same ground: old parents redecorate their sons' bedroom, throw out all his cool stuff, and put up a moose head. Turns out he loves it. He sits down to dinner with them and this old woman walks out of nowhere and rasps in this death-rattle voice: "Want your kids to leave home? Stop cooking with cheese!"

That commercial is funnier than this whole series. That's sad.

The series inherits the post-Family Guy slot Sundays starting March 12, but seeing that's also S-Day in my household, I think the likelihood of this show getting another click from me is pretty low. Only the first ride is free, guys. (Oh, see what I did there? Yes he did. He went there. Snap.)

In Canada, we had our own cute and shaggy little post-Idol carpetbagger, Jeff Ltd. which is written by and stars Jeff Seymour.

I don't know how much improv was involved in this show. It's possible, since the star also is the scriptwriter -- something that always sets off little alarm bells for me. But it's certainly not trying to run with the partially scripted ball like Free Ride, Sons & Daughters, or Curb.

This show is a bit more problematic. I want to be a cheerleader for my industry and local talent, I really do, but sadly the best thing I can say about Jeff Ltd. is that it's directed pretty well: there's a nice, crisp movement to Steve DiMarco's camera that makes me want to see more from him. I've seen comedy killed in Canada by bad direction. This is not that.

No, this is exactly the thing that you have to come to expect when an actor overextends himself. Jeff Seymour's a good performer, and he can be magnetic. But not in this show. Why not? He's got no character. There's nothing to suggest why you should watch this guy, like him, hate him, care what happens for him, wish for him to succeed, or root for him to fail.

You know how Larry David on Curb often starts out with the best of intentions, and then it all goes to hell and that's why it's funny?

Well, Jeff in Jeff Ltd. is a marketing guy. He's venal, shallow, opportunistic, with a huge ego. He's driven by greed and lust. Sounds good so far, right? He's got a female partner/co-worker. How does she feel about him? Vague disapproval, but ... otherwise unclear. He's got a sidekick, but...well, that's unclear, too. He casts an Eastern European stripper in a World Food Organization ad and sleeps with her. At the same time, he's trying to romance a teacher who teaches at the Catholic girls' school across the street. Just so you get that Jeff's a bit of a cad, there's a couple of scenes of him checking out the schoolgirls' short skirts. In the end, the teacher catches him fucking the stripper on a hood of a car. She drives off horrified, and he runs after her...

...but...why? You know? I mean, there's nothing that's been put out there to tell you why he actually cares about this woman. Why would he bother chasing after her? Why do his co-workers act the way they do? Why don't they have characters? Why is no one allowed to outshine or upstage Jeff, even for a moment? And why should we care about Jeff, even for a second, when he shows no redeeming or even interesting qualities whatsoever?

Does that sound harsh? I don't mean it to be. But watching this pilot, I was just shocked by the number of easy, clarifying fixes that could have made the thing funnier and clearer, that were just missed opportunities. If the female co-worker had been Jeff's boss, then he would have had to scheme without her catching on. There's a hint of that in there still, but it doesn't go far enough. What's the stake? Beats me. This is sometimes the blind spot that actors bring to actor-driven projects. They assume that if they're a compelling enough performer, that the viewer will just fall into line and love them. But that's not the way it works. It's understandable if you come from the school where "you create the character you play." But the character, like it or not, has to exist on the page before you pick up and imbue them with life. That's the common thing that both these semi-scripted shows, and Jeff Ltd. seems to miss.

A character who's slightly unlikable but still compelling? See, that kind of character is a real trick to pull off. Steve Carell and Ricky Gervais pull it off in their respective flavours of The Office because you see the loneliness and need lurking just underneath the surface. Larry on Curb is at least trying to do the right thing --sometimes.

Recently, I've been watching back one of those legendary old comedy series that never caught on but everyone still talks about: Buffalo Bill. At the time, Dabney Coleman's character was considered just too mean. (Now, of course, Hugh Laurie's Dr. House would have him for lunch and cure his ball cancer too -- probably while inducing a therpeutic heart attack.) You know the genre's in trouble when the funniest characters are on Drama shows.

Even in Buffalo Bill there's a window in. Because though he's a cad, he's got the love of Joanna Cassidy's character, JoJo...he's got admiration from a very young Geena Davis, and that other actor who did the voice of Piglet back in the day. See? He may seem like he's a jerk, but these other people see something in him...so there must be something else going on there.

Go back to the well on Cheers and in that first episode, you've got a tough sell. Sam Malone is a womanizing, ex-baseball player, alcoholic who owns a bar. But you know what? By the end of that first episode you see how much he loves Coach, how loyal he is to Carla, and he's even decent to Diane when her fiance leaves her high and dry. That's why you want to come back.

It's not enough to ask us to care about characters because they're the leads in your series. What is the world? Who are the people in it? How do they feel about each other? And why do I want to go back there again? Ultimately, by the end of Free Ride and Jeff Ltd. none of those questions are answered. And that's why I don't want to go back.

This is about the time that I'd get depressed. Luckily, in the last couple of weeks, I've read a couple of half-hour series scripts that are either shooting or on the verge of (hopefully) going into production -- and these scripts have heard. They hit all those points. You see the world, you get the relationships, and you want to come back. It can be done.

Improv isn't the answer, and neither is widening the auteur theory to include Actors. The answer is writing. Heartfelt, funny, well-drawn characters. A solid template. A believable world. An engaging premise.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

But that's just me.

I could be wrong.