10:48 AM CST on Friday, March 17, 2006

By MANUEL MENDOZA / The Dallas Morning News

Men are emotional midgets who just need to grow up and be honest with their love interests – it's a well-worn cliché. Even Modern Men, the new WB series that follows the relationship travails of three guys pushing 30, doesn't totally buy its own premise.

There are a few laughs to be had in the trio's futility, especially when their romantic targets turn out to be just as messed up. But the focus is on the dudes and their cocky "life coach," played with relish by a mature Jane Seymour.

If the show were less obvious, it might be funnier and wouldn't seem so much like another snow job about what women want from men now that they don't actually need them.

Representing the newly weaker sex: Doug (Eric Lively), divorced but unable to move on; lover-boy Kyle (Max Greenfield), who sleeps around not realizing he's just scared; and nice-guy Tim (Josh Braaten), who keeps getting dumped.

Tim's dad (Cheers' George Wendt), a former NFL long snapper who co-owns a bar with his son, provides the testosterone factor while The Practice's Marla Sokoloff plays Tim's intense sister, a law student who suggests the life coach.

The "boys," who have done everything together since high school, end up in group therapy, where they get ideas on how to proceed beyond Doug's conclusion that "it's always about cuddling." The coach advises, "Tell her the truth. No editing, no head games."

Good luck with all that. Or as Kyle puts it in one of the funnier rejoinders, "We want to get chicks. We don't want to be them." (The cad always gets the best lines.) It turns out honesty works – to a point. After all, this is a series, so the frustrations have to continue or there's no show.

By the second episode, women are turning the table on Kyle's Lothario ways. "Seems I'm the town whore," he says after yet another babe approaches him for sex only. When Tim's dad asks why Kyle does so well with the ladies, Tim answers, "He pictures them in bed and then works backwards."

Tim, meanwhile, keeps finding weird women to drive him nuts, and Doug can't buy a clue. Maybe the producers didn't intend it, but he sure seems gay.

E-mail mmendoza@dallasnews.com

Modern Men

C

Premieres at 8:30 tonight, the WB (Channel 33). Starring Josh Braaten, Max Greenfield, Eric Lively, Jane Seymour, George Wendt, Maria Sokoloff. Created by Ross McCall, Aaron Peters, Marsh McCall. 30 mins.