The one thing that stands out in the abominably bad new sitcom "Living With Fran" is its star. Fran Drescher, however, stands out because she's the single worst thing in it.
It's not just that grating voice that was somehow charming in "The Nanny." It's a grating performance that's as natural as polyester, as fresh as curdled milk and as believable as the supermarket tabloids.
Drescher stars as a 40something divorcee who's living with her 26-year-old boyfriend, Riley (Ryan McPartlin).
(In real life, Drescher is 47 and McPartlin is 30. On the show, they have all the chemistry of oil and water.)
Anyway, Fran's relationship with the younger man doesn't sit well with her 21-year-old son, Josh (Ben Feldman), who doesn't know about the relationship until he suddenly pops up after suffering a nervous breakdown and getting tossed out of medical school.
This would be the writers' jumping-off point for lots of "jokes" about mental health. Real funny stuff there.
Josh and Riley banter a lot about Fran, with Josh invariably cringing at any reference to his mother's sex life. Which is appropriate, because those "jokes" will make viewers cringe, too.
Tonight's first episode (7:30 p.m., Ch. 30) holds not one surprise as Josh meets Riley. A second episode (at 8:30 p.m., the show's regular time slot), is equally trite and familiar, with Fran meeting Riley's parents (Marilu Henner and John Schneider).
It's enough to make you dread next week's installment, which features Drescher's former "Nanny" co-star, Charles Shaughnessy, guest starring as Fran's philandering ex-husband.
The cast also includes Fran's stereotypically rebellious 15-year-old daughter, Allison (Misti Traya). And, in the pilot, there's a guy who Fran took in off the street who lives in a closet in her house — a character who seems to have disappeared in the second episode. Much the way viewers are going to disappear.
The paucity of material that's even remotely funny is exacerbated by Drescher's performance. She delivers her lines with all the finesse of a jackhammer, nearly beating the audience over the head with them.
To say she's cartoon-like does a disservice to cartoons. Let's just say there's not one moment in either of the two episodes that air tonight when you actually believe her character exists — that you can forget that it's Fran Drescher on a soundstage in front of a studio audience spouting lame dialogue handed to her by bad writers.
What makes this all the more amazing is that, supposedly, the concept of the show and certain individual episodes are based on Drescher's real life — the four years she spent in a relationship with a man 16 years her junior.
I'm not sure that the other actors are any good, but compared to Drescher they seem a marked step up in talent.
You almost feel sorry for the rest of the cast, who aren't "Living With Fran," they're dying with her.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com