TV is the New Reading

‘Factory’ is pretty funny

Last fall, ABC premiered a half-hour situation comedy called “Carpoolers,” in which unfunny middle-class professional suburbanites wandered around aimlessly on a soundstage until even the network got sick of them and yanked the plug.

This concept got a new lease on life when they lowered the brow a bit and reimagined it as a low-budget cable product on Spike called “Factory.”

In the opening scene of the pilot episode, a factory supervisor gets his tie caught in a piece of machinery, and four schlubs who sort of knew him are approached about replacing him.

This sets off an understated power dodge, in which all of them sort of want the position and the money but none of them actually want the responsibility it entails.

The four guys – Gary, Chase, Gus and Smitty – are also distracted by shiny things in their day-to-day lives. For instance, one of them is divorced but still living with his ex-wife because they can’t afford two homes. Another was so traumatized by his dating experiences in high school he can’t ever go out with anyone ever again.

In the course of the episode, they attend the dead guy’s funeral way out of town, hit on a young woman who’s very distantly related somehow to one of them, and they torment Todd, a jerk they dislike. They ultimately recommend Don to replace his father, the supervisor who was killed in front of him by the machine he’d been working. Nice.

On one level, it’s incredibly stupid and not worth the waste of anyone’s time to watch it. On the other hand, consider the counterintuitively existential conversation two of them had concerning the late supervisor’s last 10 seconds of life, and the difference between “regular time” and “dying time.”

Regular time for 10 seconds is “Oh, what a beautiful day, the sun is out, and oh, look at the bunnies.” Dying time is “Oh God, Oh GOD make it stop, please make it stop, ow ow ow, that’s my face! Why am I not dying?” and then ... dead.

The show is guys pranking guys in a ... well, one hesitates to call it a “work” environment when you can’t identify any actual work going on. But it’s got the same kind of attitude that makes the funnier parts of the FX dramedy “Rescue Me” pretty funny most of the time.

Is it great television? Not by a long shot. But it’s pretty good for what it is. Plus, I’ve gotta respect a sitcom that’s got a body count within its first 10 seconds. Again, nice.

“Factory” airs 9 p.m. Sundays on Spike.

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