A Friend In Denial

In

the pilot of Joey, America's favorite Friend — well, America's favorite Friend who could be persuaded to do a spin-off — moves to L.A. and lands a TV role as a male nurse, but turns it down. Days later the new show is a hit, and the actor who took the role instead has become a megastar.

The makers of Joey know TV series don't get on the air until months after taping. But why should Joey be any more realistic about life in Hollywood than Friends was about Manhattan real estate? This is one of many ways that Joey signals its determination to deliver what NBC desperately wants: familiar, Friends-style humor to kick off Thursdays at 8 p.m. E.T. exactly as we remember it — nothing less and nothing more.

Successful sitcom spin-offs — Frasier, Laverne & Shirley — give their lead characters new challenges and foils and find a fresh voice that suits them. In this show, Joey Tribbiani, Matt LeBlanc's sweet-hearted dope, heads West to jump-start his career and reconnect with his equally Noo Yawky sister Gina (The Sopranos' Drea de Matteo). We also meet his nephew Michael (Paulo Costanzo), a rocket scientist; his sharky agent, Bobbie (one-woman brass band Jennifer Coolidge); and his bland, pretty, married neighbor Alex (Andrea Anders). But none of these types are fresh or memorable. There's no Niles. Not even a Squiggy.

Deftly written, Joey sets up running gags and delayed payoffs with the precision of the special forces laying mines, much as Friends did. No, exactly as Friends did, and that's a problem. It reminds us that five-sixths of the Dream Team is missing. And where Joey does change, it's abruptly and implausibly. When he was funny on Friends, it was usually unintentionally. He still is, but when the writers need someone to deliver a Chandler-style zinger, they just lend Joey 50 IQ points for five seconds. When Gina, visiting Joey's TV taping, is mistaken (to her delight) for an actress, he cracks, "That's because you've got big fake boobs and you're crazy."

That's a funny line — but not for our Joey. And Joey's pilot is funny, but it is also sad, like a high school Mr. Popularity continuing to go to homecoming after he has graduated. "Change can be good," Joey says about his relocation. True, and his show needs more of it if it wants to become comfort food and not just leftovers.