Even with a trio of beloved actors, ‘Newlyweds’ is still seeking its honeymoon phase

When last we saw Téa Leoni on television, she had become the first female president of the United States after six seasons of the CBS drama “Madam Secretary”; seven years later, she’s teaching middle school science on an NBC sitcom, “Newlyweds,” in both cases married to Tim Daly, who is incidentally her real-life spouse.

I’m not usually interested in the history of “troubled” TV series, since the trouble might ultimately produce good results, but it seems worth mentioning that Gail Lerner, who co-created the show with Jamie Lee Curtis — who not incidentally co-stars — was fired over “creative differences” after completing six episodes; she’s been replaced by Bruce Helford, whose credits run back to “The Drew Carey Show,” which he co-created, and forward to “The Conners.” Three of those six episodes have been made available for review. I wouldn’t call the decision surprising. (But NBC would like you to know that they’re “still really, really invested and committed to it.”)

The series is a September-September romance between Jeanie (Leoni), a “butterfly,” and James (Daly), a “gopher,” a semi-stolid philosophy professor whose profession is indicated solely by occasionally dropping a name cribbed off an old syllabus. He’s divorced (from Curtis’ Claudia, who will not go away); she’s a widow with two kids at home who seem old enough to live on their own — “Gen Z, pandemic messed them up” — but obviously she likes having them around. They accidentally meet while avoiding the blind date arranged by mutual friend Dan (Al Madrigal, underused to the point of not being a character); once they get a load of each other, it’s all over— these are good-looking people. Three and half minutes into the pilot, they’ve already slept together. By the end of the episode, they’re engaged.

Much of the matter in these early episodes is assigned to establishing the potato-potahto dichotomy of their hastily entered relationship. “We love each other,” says James. “We have hot sex. We can figure out the rest in real time.” (Hot sex is a subject to which the show will return.) She’s open to new experiences; “at 60” — your only clue to the age of the characters, which is not necessarily to say the actors — he made a list of things he didn’t want to do. She likes the beach, he’s a pool guy, but actually he’d rather be in a bookstore. He likes quiet, she needs noise. They don’t agree on whether young or old Elvis should marry them in Las Vegas — they did agree on Las Vegas, at least — so they go for both. She watches reality TV with her kids; joining them, he offers, “I did my thesis on reality. Is this show about Platonic or Aristotelian ideas?”

James spends a portion of the pilot episode “on a month-long scholarship at the University of Oslo,” seemingly doing nothing but calling Jeanie. He does have a teaching assistant, Arvid (Bill O’Neill, in a bizarre impression of a Norwegian person, taking fashion cues from Pee-wee Herman), who will follow James home like a lost puppy to Los Angeles. (“I hear you have sunshine — what’s it like?” he says, apparently forgetting that for much of the year Norway is nothing but sun.) As strange foreign men go, he lacks the lovability of Latka on “Taxi” or Balki on “Perfect Strangers.” (That his nickname is “Milky” for his smooth pale skin is a perhaps unintentional rhyme). I found the character hard going much of the time — he takes up a lot of air — but Jeanie, who is a more-the-merrier sort of person, likes him well enough, and it’s her world. O’Neill is a gifted physical comedian, in any case, and the pratfalls begin right early. (He’s a decent mime, too — there’s mime.)

Though the hard-working laugh track explodes with applause when Claudia appears — the canned reaction is for Curtis, really, not the character — the fact that she’s meant to be annoying does not make her any less actually annoying. It’s a caricature of a certain sort of pretentious, blingy rich person, as if the actor wanted to get as far as possible from Donna Berzatto on “The Bear.” Where Jeanie’s place is cozy and livable — the set decorators have had a good time filling every inch of it with plants, pictures, appliances and bric-a-brac — James’ house, which he got in the divorce, is big, anonymous and charmless. It is evidently Claudia’s work (and money, unless philosophy professors are doing really well these days); she’s said to be an interior decorator, because it’s necessary we think of adults as having jobs, even if we never see them working. One wonders why they were ever married; here again, the sex was apparently good, but as the old saying almost goes, the road to hell is paved with good sex.

As to the youngsters, Emma Meisel plays Poppy, who is sometimes so emotional she can only speak gibberish (James’ learning to understand her is a sign of his growth, as is his appearing at Jeanie’s door in lederhosen, which made me sad). As Lolo, a foster child and star student Jeanie adopted out of her classroom, Ignacio Diaz-Silverio profits from his character’s relative normality; he just seems real.

Daly, of the Acting Dalys (sister Tyne, father James), has overcome his crippling handsomeness to serve his craft well over many years, including eight seasons on “Wings” and six on “Private Practice.” But he’s bottled here in a role that requires him to be unexciting. (Still, room for growth!) And as a member in good standing of the Téa Leoni fan club since “The Naked Truth,” back in the 20th century, I am happy to see her returning to television, even in “Newlyweds,” in which she is typically alive and original — she doesn’t look or sound like any other actor — despite a show that for the moment, at least, has the quality of an emu attempting to fly.

Check back later is my advice.

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