Significant Others

The big advertising draw to "Significant Others" is that it's entirely improvised. And it's a sitcom. About relationships. That's three strikes against it already, but the show is hilarious.

The show deals with three couples with dysfunctional relationships, their problems ranging from pregnancy to infidelity to histories of promiscuity. Half the show deals with their everyday lives, and the other half straight-to-the-camera chats in the form of therapy sessions (even *these* are funny. Who would have thought?).

The comedy may be improvised, but it's done with incredible skill—and no doubt, hours of rehearsal—with nary a dead spot or muffed joke in the entire thing. Be the couples eating at a restaurant with a parent, inviting friends over for a dinner party, or cheating on one another with in-laws, the show keeps finding the comedy within and milking it mercilessly.

Is it accurate? Kinda. It finds the perfect way to condense realistic situations into minutes without making them thoroughly absurd; everything is just absurd enough to be funny. It would be more than easy for stuff like this to cross the line into ridiculousness in search of a laugh, but so far "Significant Others" hasn't made that mistake. In fact, it hasn't made any.