TV: Freddie

...and at last, we come to the end of the fall season's newcomers.

Freddie Prinze, Jr. stars as Freddie Moreno, a successful Chicago chef who was just getting used to bachelor life. But when his older brother dies, Freddie takes in widow Allison (Madchen Amick); sister Sofia (Jaqueline Obradors) and 13-year-old niece Zoey (Chloe Suazo) move in after Sofia's divorce, and Grandma (Jenny Gago) comes with them. Across the hall lives best friend Chris (Brian Austin Green), the semi-obligatory sidekick who does a lot of barging in without knocking and plotting to pick up girls.

There's nothing awful about Freddie, and I even laughed once or twice during the first episode. But it's stale and predictable; these are all characters we've seen before: the sullen teen; the drunken, bitter sister-in-law; the sensible sister; the sassy granny (the fact that Grandma refuses to speak English -- her Spanish is subtitled for us -- is a new twist); the lovably sleazy pal. Green makes the best impression, despite being saddled with a particularly tacky subplot (Chris decides that the route to one-night stands is to hit on poor girls, who will be grateful for the attention and spending); while she doesn't get much time in the first episode, Amick also comes off reasonably well.

The biggest problem, though, is Prinze, who lacks the charisma and the personality to carry a show, and whose comic timing is never quite right. It's harder than it looks to play the sane voice of reason at the center of a sitcom; Prinze is trying too hard to get laughs when he's supposed to be the straight man. (He should study Bob Newhart's sitcoms; Newhart was the grandmaster at getting laughs through his reactions to everyone else's punchlines.)