Carpoolers

(ABC, Tuesday, 7,30)

Carpoolers matches well with Cavemen in the fact that they are both terrible and both entirely about dude and both about annoying dudes at that. Fred Goss is kind of funny, but Jerry O'Connell is at his Tom Cats worst here. Or his Sorority Boys worst. Your choice.

The writing is lackluster and unfocused. The funniest joke involves someone getting hit with a car. But when you can't make that same person getting hit by a car a second time funny? You're really out of your depth.

Carpoolers: ABC Tues, 7,30. D.

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Pushing Daisies

(ABC, Wednesday, 7,00)

Pushing Daisies is a strange, strange program. If you liked the look and sensibility of Amelie, or, I hear, Big Fish, you will like the strange sensibility of Pushing Daisies. The setup: Ned has an amazing power. Ned can bring people back to life. If he touches them, the come back from the dead, just as if nothing had ever happened to them. Well, not exactly just. But they are able to walk and talk and interact and such. After a minute of this, though, someone else must die to take their place. But that's OK, because if Ned touches the first dead person again, they die; this time for good. He's been using this power, with a private investigator, to solve murders and get the rewards. Ned is a piemaker.

Where the story really starts rolling is the fact that when Ned was young, he loved a girl named Chuck. Chuck moved away, and was eventually killed. And there was a reward, so Chuck brought her back. And kept her back because he loves her.

Anyway, I'm trying to keep this short and all this whimsy is starting to grate on me. So, if you don't like whimsy, don't watch. For the love of god, don't watch. Because that's most of what the show is: whimsy. And the heart-rending sadness that though Chuck and Ned both are beginning to suspect that they love each other, they can never touch, or she will die.

How this show goes for more than seven or twelve episodes, I have no idea. The look is intense, and I appreciate the differentness of the premise, but if every episode is as twee as the first, I'm going to put my fist through the TV.

And I love my TV.

So here's hoping they aren't.

Pushing Daisies. ABC, Weds, 7,00. B.