10 Items or Less (TV Show) (DVD)

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Apparently, these days the creative counter to reality shows is an unscripted (or at least mostly improv) TV series. "Curb Your Enthusiasm" had a high improv factor, but now we've got "10 Items or Less," which is billed as "10 percent scripted, 90 percent improv, 100 percent lunacy." As it turns out, only the last number is exaggerated. This comedy series, which has been accused of being a blue-collar rip-off of "The Office," is truly improv and mostly entertaining. Sometimes it's even GOL (giggle out loud). And the surprising thing is, "10 Items or Less" is so fluid you seldom realize that these folks are making it up on the fly. No one seems to be buying time to figure out where they're going. They just know, instinctively.

Ensemble comedies are so dependent upon appealing characters and talented actors, and this one manages just fine because both bases are covered. The comedy troupe that creator-star John Lehr assembled has such a bead on their characters it's easy for them to go off on a character tangent or settle into a comedy zone. They're types, but they're not such over-the-top clichés that it smacks of dinner theater or boneheaded entertainment. The vacant guy isn't totally vacant, the clueless young woman is just different from everyone else, and the studly Dudley is a heck-of-a-lot more sensitive than most of his type. The Dick Button checker isn't quite as Dicky, and even the brassy woman has more depth than her usual comedy counterparts.

I'm not a fan of "The Office" because I don't get cubicle people or their cubicle sense of humor, but this show could never have been called "The Grocery" because the humor is based on character, not inside gags related to the retail industry. Oh, they're here, but what makes "10 Items or Less" more enjoyable for me than "The Office" is that the actors made me care about their characters and day-to-day interaction, there's hardly ever a hitch in their giddyups, they whiz through their ad-libs like Olympians, and all of them know how to give and take so that the comedy is spread evenly among them. And the pacing is "The Office" times four. In my book, it all adds up to a successful show. Of course, not everyone will think so. Such is the nature of comedy, and it goes double for improv. Without the crowd factor, improv is a risky business at best, and sometimes the characters in "10 Items or Less" do come across a little strident, given the fact that they're performing in a vacuum instead of in front of a nightclub audience. But TBS picked up the show's option for a third season and the Nielsen numbers have been encouraging, so I'm not the only one to think "10 Items or Less" has something going for it.

John Lehr stars as an enthusiastic-but-doofus version of Steve Carrell. He plays Leslie, who, in an "Arrested Development"-style intro, we learn was always a disappointment to his father and went to New York to try to prove him wrong. But Dad died, and so Leslie came back to Ohio to take over his father's Greens & Grains grocery store. Here, he's the perky, peppy, manual junkie who's into employee bonding, sharing, "team," and all of the things that people put on framed posters in the workplace. His crew? They're just happy to have jobs in this economy, especially when a mega-store had made arrangements with Dad before he died to buy the store and turn it into a parking lot.

Will Leslie let that happen? Heck no. And his rag-tag group of employees are with him to the bitter end. Ingrid (Kirsten Gronfield) is a customer service "specialist" whose specialty is caving in to anyone's demands. One cashier (Christopher Liam Moore) is a figure-skater wannabe. The butcher, Todd, thinks he's the alpha bull who slings a lot of it as he tries to pick up customers. Produce manager Yolanda seems ready to pelt people with fruit at the slightest provocation, though that only seems to turn on maintenance manager Carl (Bob Clendenin). Then there's Buck (Greg Davis, Jr.), who's going to night school so he can get a "real" job. Despite a clichéd sideplot about rival Super Value Mart representative Amy (Jennifer Elise Cox) trying to force them out of business so they can use the property for a parking lot, engaging performances make this show strangely mesmerizing.