Producer hopes new CBS series 'Worst Week' has better luck than show's protagonist

McClatchy Newspapers (MCT) - The idea behind the new CBS comedy "Worst Week" is that Sam Briggs (Kyle Bornheimer) is having a bad stretch of luck. It is a really bad stretch. We are talking the length of the Great Wall of China stretch.

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But through it all he prevails. At least he had better or there won't be a second episode after tonight's debut on CBS. When asked about the amount of torture the show's leading man faces in the first show, executive producer Matt Tarses says during an interview in July that "we can't maintain that."

He's just kidding. That's what the guy who worked on series such as "Sports Night" and "Scrubs" does.

Then he offers a more serious response.

"I think the goal is to try to maintain that. I mean, we've been working really hard. That's what the show is. A friend of mine asked me, 'Well, he's not going to step in it every week, is he?' And the answer is, 'Absolutely. Yeah, he is.' I mean, that's what we're going to do or we're going to set out to do," says Tarses. "The trick will be figuring out ways to keep it fresh and keep it surprising and interesting."

That means a lot of weird moments for Bornheimer. He's had to ask himself such comedy questions as "How much urine is funny?" and "Is a blue diaper funnier than a green diaper?" Bornheimer calls working on the show like being on a weird, creative bubble.

Tarses is getting a little help coming up with the weird comedy moments for the first few episodes. The series is based on a British show. Tarses found the script for that series funny and has used some of the material in the American version.

Bornheimer jokes the only thing not used from the British scripts was "the tea and crumpets scene."

So if you have seen the British series, the first few episodes won't offer many surprises. The rest of you will have to wait to see what happens. Tarses would only say the character of Dick Clayton (Kurtwood Smith), Briggs' potential father-in-law, will be a key figure in much of what makes the week so bad.

The series is the first for Smith since he rode herd over the teens in "That '70s Show." It is a return to comedy, but Smith finds the role on "Worst Week" to be very different.

"I think he's quite different than Red. He fills the same function, obviously, but this gentleman's a judge. He comes from a whole different background," Smith says. "And Red was much more of a blue-collar conservative. This guy's a whole different deal.

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"He does work in the same way but has much more of an acid wit."

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WORST WEEK

9:30 p.m. EDT Monday

CBS

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© 2008, The Fresno Bee (Fresno, Calif.).