Wilfred

Wilfred works on many levels, something that may not become apparent until after you stop laughing.

It fits the channel's larger brand (in both comedy and drama) about men existing on the edges of acceptable human behavior.

Some viewers will delight in the edgy humor, while others undoubtedly will want to slap an extra-tight muzzle on Wilfred.

Fair warning, dear reader: Wilfred is intensely vulgar, and only guys around the age of 28 whose ears, and sensibilities, are covered with scar tissue will find nothing offensive. Otherwise, it's very funny.

It's up in the air as to how Wilfred will be perceived by viewers. The first three episodes are fantastic, but proudly off-color, like most of FX's comedy line-up.

By not belaboring the point--Ryan is not crazy, there is nothing supernatural afoot--the show stays fresh, the gimmick fades. The humor is frequently scatological or sexual, but a mitigating sweetness enfolds it all.

There's nothing at all subtle about the gloriously absurdist Wilfred.

While all the philosophical, existential and surprisingly intimate moments of their friendship are the wonderfully surprising backbone to Wilfred, the hook is the absurdist situations and brilliant humor.

Luckily, the last thing many of us need in summer is another show that demands our weekly attention. Entertainment we can dip in and out of will do. And if that's what you want, Wilfred is a good dog indeed.

Wood's puppy-dog eyes and Gann's crazy dog persona--or is that dogsona?--are a few things that make Wilfred watchable, in an existential-Johnny Depp-meets-"Monty Python" kind of way, that is.

It borrows indiscriminately from hazy magic realism, sketch-show Dada, and underground-comics allegory according to alternating whim. If you don't give a hoot about such logistical issues--and if you're willing to forgive the half-hearted crudity that fills the space between good crude jokes and the bizarro non-jokes-then you have come to the right place.

It seems like the show will basically be a weekly dose of two-steps-forward-one-step-back for Ryan with Wilfred as his teacher/tormentor. Wilfred certainly has moments of high (and low) comedy but it's also hard to imagine the premise won't get stale pretty fast.

It's crude and hilarious and clearly aimed at a young male audience.

I've now seen three episodes of Wilfred, however, and I think this bizarre, dark yet oddly good-hearted series has legs. Four of them, at least.

The show has a nice sense of innocence, thanks to Wood's gentle performance and the theme of personal transformation; but it is also filled with uneven sexual and scatological jokes, delivered with a dog-like lack of modesty, so viewer be warned. For some, that level of humor is a deal breaker.

Wilfred is still a work in progress; in the early stages, the relationship between the dog and the man feels a little claustrophobic, but as the episodes progress, Ryan's world begins to expand a bit, which is a good thing.

In the end, all of this may amount to little more than a one-trick dog and pony show. But Gann can be irresistibly gross at times while Wood is good at being hapless. Together they sometimes make quite a comedy team. Almost as good as Turner & Hooch.

While squirrel-eating jokes are all well and good for now, if Wilfred is going to make it, Wood and Gann will have to develop some real chemistry and comic rhythm, especially if the show's writers continue to be so reliant on the inherent novelty of their premise.

By the end of the third episode, I was tired of all the sodomy jokes. Wood is an appealing comedic lead, but he's working off scraps. Be charitable and chalk up Gann's appeal to cultural differences.

While Wilfred will doubtless find cultish admirers, after previewing three episodes, the size of its pack should be limited.

So it may develop a cult following, and whether it does or not, FX deserves continuing credit for trying different approaches to traditional TV shows. Too often, though, Wilfred makes us work a little too hard for the payout.

Wilfred tries for a coarse sophistication that locates it somewhere between HBO's winsome "Flight of the Conchords" and FX's brutally honest "Louie" (which begins its second season on Thursday night). But it ends up muffled and not very funny.

Wilfred would appear to be crafted from a can't-miss, indie-hipster aesthetic, which may be part of the problem: The show is cool to the point of being cold. The bark is all snark. It doesn't work.