Fantasy football show proves tedious

After seeing one of the mindnumbingly ubiquitous advertisements for FX’s new sitcom “The League,” one might wonder how a show about a handful of guys playing fantasy football could possibly have any longevity. After seeing the show’s pilot, one wonders how the writing will even make it through the first season.

The show revolves around five guys, all of whom fall into predictable stereotypes, participating in a fantasy football league. Pete (Mark Duplass) is the defending champion and more gungho than anyone else because of his accomplishment as league champion, but his wife Meghan (Leslie Bibb) despises the game and is more concerned with starting a family.

The central conflict for our lead is downright cliche. Meghan is the “evil” controlling wife, attempting to squeeze all the joy out of her husband by degrading his passion. “It’s fake,” she says in this voice that unintentionally sounds like a playground insult. Is it too much to ask for a character a bit more mature and three-dimensional than that?

In fact, both women in this show have their default action set at brainwash. One would think the writing might be from a male perspective, eh? The guys constantly tease another player Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi) for involving his wife Jenny (Katie Aselton) in the fantasy football decisionmaking. In essence, Jenny has went the other way and taken over the fantasy football team rather than attempting to eliminate it altogether.

But Kevin and Jenny speak more to the central theme of the show, which seems to be about a bunch of male adults attempting to return to adolescence through a game. But they cannot because they are stuck in the banal real world where they have marriages and jobs to contend with, taking up their precious time. The guys envy a 9-year-old football fanatic, called The Oracle, who does not have these obligations.

Now this theme is pretty universal. Just speak to the countless who play fantasy football at the office when they should be doing their work. The problem is that maybe it’s too universal. Outside of an unbelievable pick swap, nothing happens in the show’s pilot that’s particularly outrageous. For the show airing after the raunchy comedy “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” it’s pretty tame in comparison.

A believable sitcom would be fine if it managed to even stay consistent with its tone. It’s all real-world problems until suddenly two players, district attorney Kevin and defense attorney Ruxin, swap first-round picks by bargaining down a defendant’s jail sentence. While the scene itself ultimately falls flat, it feels more bizarre in a show that’s been all birthday parties and afternoons at home until then.

Throughout the pilot, Ruxin attempts to bribe The Oracle for his football knowledge to aid in winning the league, but, like all the cliché characters, the climax of this plotline is predictable from the start. (As Ruxin increases his interaction with the child, The Oracle’s father suspects pedophilia.) But unlike in “Sunny” where this would lead to an over-the-top crescendo moment, it just fades out speedily and in a whimper each time the possibility of humor presents itself.

The show’s advertising campaign set it up to look like a raucous romp about the most devoted, ridiculous fantasy football league in history, but there’s nothing about the actual league that’s so hard to believe. So they have a party where they get together and pick players? So they jockey for bragging rights? So they argue for picks? So what? Where’s the humor here?

Not to mention, the fantasy football jokes have been done before. The actual fantasy football draft in the pilot just recalls memories of a funnier scene with Paul Rudd in “Knocked Up.” Anecdotal humor like accidentally picking someone who has already retired belong more on a friend’s Facebook wall than an actual television script.

At the end of the episode, the viewer is glad it’s over and is left wondering how any of this is remotely noteworthy. Given the theme of fantasy football, someone with a camera and a Youtube video account could probably provide more laughs by accident. Someone probably already has.

One just feels sad that George Lowe of “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” fame, serving as narrator of the advertisements, has been roped in with this boring bunch.