"The New Adventures of Old Christine:" "I don't want to be proposed to while I'm cleaning up hairballs"

Jeez, either I'm losing my sense of humor or every broadcast-network sitcom writer in the country is. "The New Adventures of Old Christine" returns Wednesday and it's, well, not very funny. But at least it's not awful, unlike some of the other "comedies" I've had to sit through have been. It's just inoffensively blah.

(Wacky!)

It opens with Christine's (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) ex Richard (Clark Gregg) announcing that he's "going to ask New Christine (Emily Rutherfurd) to marry me." That, of course, will not go well. Then Barb (Wanda Sykes) barges in with more expository news - now that her divorce is final, she may not be able to stay in the country - she was born in the Bahamas.

(OK, now I know the whole country has become increasingly paranoid these days, but I call bullsh!t here - the rules used to be, once you get your Green Card they can't give you the boot even if you did divorce the dupe you used to get your Green Card (and even if you did so within weeks of getting said Green Card). And since Barb has been in the country for 20 years, as this episode establishes, she's clearly not a security risk, and so - oh, why the hell am I trying to make sense of a sitcom episode?)

Christine is shocked to learn that the Bahamas aren't under U.S. jurisdiction: "Are you sure? American Airlines flies there."

For some reason, they've decided to make Christine really obtuse, moreso than usual even, this episode. When she discovers that California has legalized gay marriage (really? She hadn't heard that? Like, doesn't, most of the country know this?), she dismissively responds, "Yeah, gay marriage between two men."

Once she's clear on the concept, Christine asks Barb to marry her. Their marriage, she tells her, will have "everything real marriages do," including that bonus of "no sex." Barb asks Christine if she really wants to do this, and - spoiler alert - she responds with a genuinely funny line: "I never do what I don't want to do, except on second dates, but that's just good manners."

There's an almost-funny scene when they go to get their marriage license, and just as they're working their way to a graceful climax (sorry, poor choice of words), the writing and/or directing finds a really clunky way of ruining the final scene.

Apparently, I was more prescient than I realized.

- "The New Adventures of Old Christine:" 8 p.m. Wednesday, CBS (Channel 2).