Watercooler: Breaking In (Kind of) Cracks Us Up

Seriously Fox, you picked Running Wilde over this? Dag.
Last night, Breaking In, the show that was bumped from the fall lineup by that waste of Will Arnett, finally made it to the air and was able to do in 30 minutes what Wilde barely did in 13 episodes: Entertain us.
Set around the inter-office antics of a high-end security consulting firm and starring the always-likeable Bret Harrison (Reaper) and Christian Slater, Breaking In is a rare bird — not just because it finally gives Slater a TV role worthy of his Jack Nicholson tics. Its mix of action and pop culture-soaked nerd comedy isn't something we've seen much of in the half-hour format and while it was a bit jarring to jump from Chewbacca jokes to semi-tense action sequences, the overall effect was akin to watching the mildly rambunctious lovechild of Chuck and Better Off Ted, as nannied by that nifty Robert Redford caper "Sneakers." And that's not a bad thing at all. Nor is the idea of coming back to this show, if only to see just how far out-there Smallville alum Michael Rosenbaum goes as the d-bag beau of Harrison's workplace crush (Odette Annable in the needs-to-be-retired "cool girl with bad taste in men" role).
Is it the perfect comedy? Of course not. As previously mentioned, the tonal shifts need to be smoothed out and some of the humor is more "oh look, that's funny" than flat-out LOL. But there is a lot to like here — particularly Harrison, who has the harried newbie act down thanks to similar gigs on Reaper and the underrated The Loop— and there are definitely worse ways to spend a half hour the spring (cough, Paul Reiser Show, cough). Also, let's not forget that last night's pilot was filmed almost a year ago, so it will be interesting to see what improvements, if any, were made in the time between the first and second episodes.
We're willing to check back In. Are you?
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