So what is her problem?

PATTIE PEGLER

PERFECTION: The title is a play on 'unnecessary roughness', a penalty in American football.

'Life is like a football game, there's winners and there's losers."

So says the opening line of new US dramedy Necessary Roughness (starting tonight, 9.30pm, TV2). It's a pretty banal observation. But it's at least a good indicator of what to expect from the rest of this first episode.

Dr Dani (Callie Thorne) is that cliched female lead, the beautiful but feisty mum juggling work and family life. Then she finds her husband, a cliched, middle-aged philanderer, has been cheating on her with multiple women.

"Next time you screw someone in the guest bedroom, just remember I do box pleats, not hospital corners," she says about the bed sheets. It was one of the few mildly amusing lines in the show.

Add into the mix a carb-addicted therapy patient, an abrasive mother with a comical gambling problem and two stroppy teenagers – and you've got your full set of cookie-cutter, light entertainment characters.

It's difficult to make an interesting and convincing story peopled by cardboard cut-outs and so the writers don't try. Instead we get a chain of deeply implausible events.

No sooner has Dr Dani finished throwing her cheating husband's clothes out of the bedroom window (yep, another cliched scene), then she is heading out for a night on the town with one of her girlfriends. You know, like feisty, one-dimensional women do when they're in the throes of divorce.

In a nightclub, she gets hit on by a handsome trainer for the New York Hawks, an American grid iron team. Nek minnit she's been assigned as therapist to one of the star athletes.

However, he'd rather be out boozing and clubbing than listening to Dr Dani and her hypno-babble. And frankly, who can blame him?

Apart from the therapy issues, the writers have also tried to get in some tension with the cheating husband, the divorce and the work/family conflicts. But they're glossed over so quickly in favour of some pointless action that you get no sense of Dr Dani suffering at all.

And that's half the problem. Here's a main character who hasn't really got much to be upset about because her life seems pretty good by most standards. Sure her ex-husband is a jerk. But she has met a great new man, she has been handed a chunk of lucrative therapy work. She lives in a fantastic house with two kids and she's gorgeous.

Where's the "dramedy" there? Good stories are about things going wrong, about misery, struggles and problems. They're very rarely about people who have a few hiccups, but then everything works out really well.

The only plus point is actress Callie Thorne who puts in a good performance as Dr Dani and makes the most of the few decent lines. But that's simply not enough to carry the whole show.

Weak writing, one dimensional characters and a lazy storyline make this one to miss.

Necessary Roughness: Tuesdays, 9.30pm, TV2.

- © Fairfax NZ News