No Oscar win, but Felix cleans up on new ‘Odd Couple’

Can Jim Parsons save Matthew Perry's career?

CBS is piggybacking the premiere of Perry's newest show, "The Odd Couple," with the red-hot "Big Bang Theory" on Thursday night. So Perry — whose three previous attempts to star in his own series have been loud failures — is guaranteed an audience for the first and maybe the second episode of his latest series.

After that, nostalgia for the Jack Klugman/Tony Randall ABC series from the '70s may play a key role in keeping an audience.

The setup — and even the theme music — are the same. The canned laughter sounds like it was borrowed from an old episode of "Here's Lucy."

Perry, at his dissipated peak, plays sportscaster and aging ladies man Oscar Madison, whose cheesy idea of how to pick up women in his apartment building is to put his own mail in their mailboxes, so they'll ring his bell to return it.

Not one minute after one of these neighbors (Leslie Bibb) agrees to come in for a drink — even though the place looks like a pigsty — the bell rings again, with an unexpected visitor: Felix Unger, Oscar's college buddy and friend of many years, who's just been kicked out by his wife.

Felix is played by Thomas Lennon, the one bright spot in this warmed-over enterprise.

Thomas Lennon brings the spirit of "Frasier" character Niles Crane to his portrayal of Felix.Photo: Sonja Flemming/CBS

When Oscar has the guys over to watch the game, Felix prepares a vegan feast ("Gentleman, start your taste buds"). When Oscar blows up after Felix's neatnik ways get on his nerves, Felix loses his cool.

"It is no picnic living with an inconsiderate slob who is so lazy that his idea of multi-tasking is peeing in the shower," he says — adding after falling and hitting his head on the coffee table: "I'm concussed. I know I'm concussed."

With his high-strung personality and fussbudget demeanor, Felix may remind you more of Niles Crane — the "Frasier" character who committed grand larceny in the scene-stealing department — than anything Randall ever did. It's no accident that Joe Keenan, who wrote for "Frasier," is also an executive producer on "The Odd Couple."

The strange journey of "The Odd Couple," from its birth on Broadway and subsequent adaptations for a 1968 Hollywood film and now three TV series (there was even a black version called "The New Odd Couple" in 1982) is testament to one of the most durable properties in the history of entertainment.

This latest production is not completely terrible; it just underscores the sad state of affairs on network television where programmers are seriously hurting for a fresh idea.

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