Love Bites isn't all that bad

At first, the premise of the show had me confused. A quick 15 minute vignette followed by a commercial break then a title card. Then it dawned on me, maybe Love Bites was a play on words -- maybe each segment (15 minutes or so) would feature a new story with a different cast of characters. Hell, anything's possible with a show that's been rewritten, recast, postponed, shelved and reworked more times than a pile of Silly Putty. The fifteen minute format might work for today's Twitter generation but good luck building a following from week to week.

But I was wrong again. Suddenly the title cards seemed pointless. The story started to come together and the lives of the characters started to be woven together.

All told, unless things pan out down the road, the lead character played by Becki Newton seems utterly pointless. She was shown during only the first 15 minute segment and only briefly then. Kyle Howard's appearance was somewhat welcome and unlike his previous milquetoast role in TBS's My Boys, he actually showed glimmers of comedic acting.

Greg Grundberg along with Craig Robinson (The Office) made for a serivceable comedic pairing. The scenes with Grundberg and Jennifer Love Hewitt on a cross country flight with Grundberg explaining his exceptions list and the fact that Hewitt was the only one of the list was funny. Funnier still was Hewitt confessing that her number-one fantasy was having sex on an airplane. The pieces all falling in to place seemed almost too convenient but made for a legitimately funny yet uncomfortable piece of writing. I won't give away the climax of this part of the story but the pair does end up in a very cramped airplane restroom.

All told, the story thus far, is disjointed but after writing the show off after just three minutes but sticking around for the entire hour, I think that with some more solid writing that Love Bites could have had a legitimate chance on the regular season NBC schedule. I'd say that if you have nothing else going on, check out Love Bites Thursdays at 9 PM C/T on NBC because at least it's better than the litany of repeats and unscripted garbage littering the summer airwaves.