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You can't force the funny.
Comedy, when it's working, appears effortless. Laughs flow naturally, and frequently, without ever creating the feeling that someone's trying too hard to get them.
When it's forced, it ain't funny. And CBC's new situation-comedy effort, Rumours, feels so forced that it's downright uncomfortable to watch.
The series, which premieres Monday at 9 p.m. on CBC, is based on a Quebec comedy called Rumeurs that has been a big success on CBC's French service for half a decade. It concerns itself with the goings-on at a Toronto-based women's magazine and the fish-out-of-water misadventures of two new staffers -- one male, one female -- hired by its publisher.
Ben Devlin (David Haydn-Jones) is a well-known sports columnist whose cranky prose and abrasive nature have made him as unpopular with his bosses as he is popular with his readers. He's such a pain to his editor,...