‘Best Friends’ lacks clever script, comedy

Don’t blame Neil Simon. He only created the seminal buddy comedy, “The Odd Couple.”

Don’t fault Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, or Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. Those two acting pairings just did it right, first in the movie version, then the TV version of Simon’s classic.

Instead, blame plagiarizing movie and TV writers who, bereft of an original thought, keep rubbing different duos together in hopes of getting a comedic spark. So far, the big and small screens haven’t been set aflame very often.

“Some of My Best Friends,” debuting at 8 tonight on CBS, is the latest to recycle this hoary concept. This time, a gay white male needs a roommate to share the rent after his boyfriend leaves him. A straight Italian male (who thinks that GWM in the for-rent ad stands for “guy with money”) shows up looking for a place. Much misunderstanding and comic hi-jinks ensue.

Warren and Frankie (can you guess which is which?) each have their own support systems. For

Warren (Jason Bateman), it’s his sister Meryl (the tragically wasted Jessica Lundy) and his flaming sidekick Vern (Alec Mapa), who makes Jack on “Will and Grace” look butch by comparison. Frankie (Danny Nucci) has his mook of a best friend, Pino (Michael DeLuise), and his very Italian parents (whose dialogue seems to consist of “Whatsamatta you”).

How this one slipped by the network P.C. police is a mystery. The two leads spend most of their time trying to hide their true identities (Frankie’s friends couldn’t handle him having a gay roommate so Warren goes along by playing straight). And the predictable Bette Midler (whose antic show follows on CBS) and “Sopranos” jokes just fly.

Since his youth, Bateman (last seen on “George and Leo”) has been a reliable, likable sitcom presence. But he and the rest of the strong cast are set adrift without much of a script. (Hey, there’s an idea for a CBS reality show. “Survivor III – the Hollywood back lots.” Which actor will survive the longest on a sitcom without punch lines?)

For this, they jettisoned “Welcome to New York”? That Christine Baranski starred wasn’t great by any means, but it was still markedly better than “Some of My Best Friends.”