Channel Surfing: Mystified by \'Happy Endings\'

Michael Desmond/ABCAdam Pally, left, Zachary Knighton, Elisha Cuthbert, Damon Wayans Jr., Eliza Coupe and Casey Wilson in “Happy Endings.”

“Happy Endings” fans, help me out here. What am I missing? I see a situation comedy that has dispensed not just with jokes, but also, for the most part, with any straight-ahead attempt at comedy. Yet the show has survived into its third season, which began Tuesday night on ABC.

I see the signifiers of comedy - the incessant brand-name and pop-culture references, the fetish with irritatin g abbreviations (“abbrevs”), the crossing up of traditional gender roles, the sudden rants - but they don't make me laugh, if that's what they're meant to do. I know it's supposed to be funny when Damon Wayans Jr. and a ventriloquist's dummy recap the episode in song, to the tune of “Ebony and Ivory.” Oh well.

The season opener neatly divided the six main characters into three bite-size story lines. Alex (Elisha Cuthbert) and Dave (Zachary Knighton), last seen holding hands at the gay wedding that closed Season 2, announced they were dating again but keeping it casual, then announced they were moving in together. Brad (Mr. Wayans), in his latest wacky effort to appease his wife, Jane (Eliza Coupe), pretended to be staying home and recharging his batteries when he was actually starting a new job. And Max (Adam Pally) schemed to keep Penny (Casey Wilson) in a full-body cast (she'd fallen down a staircase) so that he could make time with her Adonis-like physical therapist.

Every once in a while something clicked, like Mr. Pally's spot-on imitation of Gil the restaurant critic from “Frasier,” and Ms. Wilson, who's just plain funny, made the most of her Michelin-man plaster carapace. But overall it was the flat, affectless comedy of diminished expectations:

â€" “It's like a Slinky with breasts” (Brad watching Penny fall downstairs).

â€" “Stop ‘Misery'-ing me” (the imprisoned Penny berating Max).

â€" “What makes you think she was born in a monster truck?” “She said she was from Florida.”

Or maybe I just don't get it, in which case please set me straight in the comments.