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'FOUR KINGS'

Rating 2

7:30 p.m. Thursdays on WMAQ-Channel 5.

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'Four Kings" is another sitcom in which the studio audience loves the show more than humanly possible. One of the men on "Kings" says, "Bring it b----," to another guy, and the audience roars, ha-ha-ha- ha-ha. A minute later the same dude says, "I just got [punched] -- on the inside," and the audience goes, "Awwww." Yeah, that's a load of dookie.

"Four Kings" is a strange thing. The first episode of the new NBC comedy (7:30 tonight, WMAQ-Channel 5) reeks. But there are moments in the next two episodes that make it seem as if it has the potential to be a male version of "Sex and the City," minus the naughty stuff HBO could show that NBC can't.

The show is about four twentysomething childhood friends deciding to move in together in the big city. In the debut episode, they go to a funeral where an elderly woman tells one of the Four Kings she smokes pot for her glaucoma. He responds, "That would explain why you were giggling through the funeral."

Trite writing like that kills comedy. Worse still, another one of the Four Kings dumps his personal trainer for another by saying, "I'm with Charlie now," and the scene is supposed to play out as a parallel of a guy breaking up with a lover. Certainly, you've never seen that role reversal on a sitcom before. Oh, no.

The next two episodes also suffer some situations that lazily tread familiar sitcom ground, but the dialogue is cuter and the actors settle into their roles.

For instance, the roommates go to a bar full of women and bet each other they can score a one-night stand. Awkward fighting over ladies develops. To fetch this story line, the writers went digging in the dinosaur graveyard of sitcoms.

But the actors salvage this scene, and the series springs to life when they make their manly attitudes funny. One guy calls another a "douche" for good reason. And the guy who won the bet receives a confrontation from his roommates; they tell him he shouldn't again turn a one-night stand into a relationship. He needs to taste a variety of females.

It's not that the Four Kings are right or wrong in their claim that men must hit-it-and-quit-it to become more emotionally grounded. But in the world of TV comedy, men have become at best sensitive but fragile boyfriends, and at worst crappy husbands or weak, emasculated toadies. These guys are thankfully none of the above.

That's obvious even in tonight's crappy episode when one of the guys actually stands up for himself without being a jerk when his girlfriend gives him an ultimatum. She tries to control him. He resists. She walks. He's able to handle it. Wow. When does that ever happen on TV?

And in episode No. 3, two of the roommates sneak around to punch each other in the chest. It's a stupid man game, but their stabs at being macho are ridiculous in a funny way. "Dudes, I just chested the hell out of Jason. In the shower!" one brags to his pals. "My arm was in and out so fast, my hand didn't even get wet. It's like 'The Matrix'!"

That quote is sold well by Shane McRae, playing Bobby, the roomie with the low IQ and a thicket of hair. The other stereotypes are easy to peg, too. Ben (Josh Cooke) is the mentally centered one. Barry (Seth Green) is the chatty whiner the others make fun of for being short. And Jason (Todd Grinnell) is the dandy most likely to come out of the closet in season three. They're all very svelte.

This is the latest sitcom from "Will & Grace" co-creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan. The feel of "Four Kings" is similar in its rat-a-tat-tat machinegun style of spraying jokes at us, and that the main characters shoot for laughs by saying cruel things to each other, with the understanding they'll comfort each other in the end. Awww. Isn't that sweet?

Well, no. But it's more true to a certain brand of American male that is largely missing from TV, not counting when that male is a white-collar criminal on "Law & Order." Remember that song from the 1990s, "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" Here they are. They're fratty, bratty and insensitive, but they're male-bonded cowboys in the city.

WHAT ELSE IS ON:

"Dancing With the Stars" (7 p.m., WLS-Channel 7): Last summer's surprise hit gets a new season with a two-hour premiere. "Celebrity" dancers include Tia ("Wayne's World") Carrerre, George "Too Tan" Hamilton, Tatum ("Paper Moon") O'Neal and rapper Master P. They can dance. If they want to. For inspiration. They can also leave their friends behind.

"My Name Is Earl" (8 p.m., WMAQ-Channel 5): One of the season's best new shows, about a former scumbag who tries to make up for past transgressions, resumes with a new episode tonight on a new night. This is NBC's attempt at bringing back from the dead its "Must See" Thursday night lineup of comedies. So, it's "Will & Grace" at 7, "Four Kings" at 7:30, "Earl" at 8 and "The Office" at 8:30. "ER" starts at the moronic time of 8:59 p.m., because NBC hates viewers who have DVRs,TiVos and tape machines, which rely on the apparently peculiar-to-NBC timing method known as the hourly clock system.

"American Experience: Influenza 1918" (8 p.m., WTTW-Channel 11): In 1918-19, the Spanish flu, "La Grippe," killed more people worldwide than died in World War I. Health experts worry the emerging bird flu could be a pandemic like that. PBS' documentary looks back.

"Dallas SWAT" (9 p.m., A&E): A new hourlong drama explores the occupation you never see on TV: cops. But this time ... they're SWAT team members. There once was a show called "S.W.A.T." There once was a show called "Dallas." This is nothing like those.

e-mail: delfman@suntimes.com