What I’m Watching: Love Bites

Love Bites: Season 1, Episode 5 “Stand and Deliver” (C-)

This show is beginning to get less reliable as each segment becomes even more spectacular, and not in a good way. I wasn’t a fan of the first vignette, which featured Beau Bridges as a very different kind of father from the one he played this past Wednesday on “Franklin & Bash.” This episode was likely filmed nearly a year earlier, of course, and it’s merely coincidence that they’re both airing in the same week. Bridges’ role wasn’t terribly interesting, of course, and nearly was the highly unmotivated Sam’s struggle to win his girl back. Having her engage in a relationship with his baseball player hero, played by Brian J. White from “The Shield,” was a bit of a stretch, who proved to be quite predictable in his philandering ways. The ending of the segment was also terribly weak. I’ve lost all interest in Judd and Colleen, and the number of sexual plotlines that the two have had thus far is staggering and unbelievable. Chris Parnell definitely stole much of the attention away from them, which isn’t all that unfortunate, with his goofy realtor act. The third segment was at least decently enjoyable, if a bit over-the-top with Marcelo’s immediate reappearance. The two leads – Emily Rutherford and Cristian de la Fuente – but the primary weakness of this show is demonstrated by its supporting characters, who yammer through too much of the segment. Kathy Kinney (Mimi from “The Drew Carey Show”) and Tim Bagley (Harold Krenshaw from “Monk”) are usually funny, but their characters were trying way too hard to be noticed. This segment, and the heart of this episode, was about the allure of the corner cubicle over the Brazilian man, and that’s much more amusing that anything else in the rest of the hour.