Now flying solo, Richter targets the TV universe

Starting tonight, Andy Richter will try to answer the eternal question: “Can a second banana make it on his own?”

First Ed McMahon and now Paul Shaffer kept their night jobs while exploring other projects. But Richter left Conan O’Brien’s show in 2000 and hasn’t looked back, picking up an assortment of film roles since then.

Now Richter takes center stage in his new series, “Andy Richter Controls the Universe,” debuting at 8:30 on Fox. The show makes good use of Richter’s everyman persona, but still falls short.

On the show, Richter plays Andy, a struggling short-story writer who works as a technical writer for a faceless conglomerate. Andy finds himself sharing an office with oddball illustrator Byron (Jonathan Slavin). He’s friends with his boss Jessica (Paget Brewster) and good-looking co-worker Keith (James Patrick Stuart), who is dating the new receptionist, Wendy (Irene Molloy), whom Andy has a crush on.

So the setting itself is rather drab, intentionally. What works in the series is Andy’s colorful fantasy life. The show keeps cutting between what Andy should have said or done and what he actually said or did.

The trick is balancing the use of these fantasy sequences. NBC’s “Scrubs” does that well, but NBC’s short-lived replacement series “Imagine That” did that badly. Richter’s show is still trying to find the balance, erring on the side of excess in early episodes.

The series is definitely a cut below the show it’s replacing, the criminally neglected “Undeclared.” In fact, it’s the least appealing among the other comedies in the time slot, behind NBC’s “Watching Ellie” and ABC’s fading “Spin City.”

Maybe Andy Richter controls the universe, but it’s doubtful this uneven effort will control the ratings.