Mixology: TV review

Premieres Wednesday, February 26 at 8:30pm on ABC.

Have you ever been to a really douchey bar, surrounded by a bunch of awful people who are trying to hook up, and thought to yourself, "Man, this would make a great television show."

Apparently, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the guys that brought us films like The Hangover and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, did. Following ten characters over the course of a single night in one bar, Mixology challenges this fall's Dads as one of the worst new shows of the television season.

RECOMMENDED: Read all our reviews of Winter TV premieres

Each episode of Mixology hones in on a random coupling of its core cast of characters as two dance around the possibility of hooking up at the end of the night. One of the characters narrates each episode, including giving mini life stories of the two leads, beginning with their birth. The cast of characters includes nice guy Tom (Blake Lee), mean girl Maya (Ginger Gonzaga), skirt-chaser Bruce (Andrew Santino), Tom and Bruce's friend Cal (Craig Frank), bashful Liv (Kate Simses), single mom Jessica (Alexis Carra), recently bankrupted Ron (Adam Campbell), over-the-top Fab (Frankie Shaw), ditzy waitress Kacey (Vanessa Lengies) and hot bartender Dominic (Adan Canto). While some obvious pairings develop over the course of the first few installments, it's likely that things will shift around over the course of the 13-episode evening at the bar as people gradually disappoint each other.

In the grand old days of television, setting your sitcom in bar meant that your cast of characters was populated by grouchy, shiftless working class folk who were drinking their long day away before heading home. That may sound kind of depressing, but the bar culture that Mixology puts forth is far more dismal. Where once we had Cheers, now we get a sallow ensemble of terrible twentysomethings trying to find someone to bump uglies with before the night is through. The most likable person bar patron we meet in Mixology is Sarah Bolger's Janey, a sweet girl who's instantly taken in by drunken sad sack Ron but disappears after the first episode. The fellas are the type of guys that make rape jokes before sending a buddy over to hit on a girl, and the ladies are either mean or annoyingly baby-voiced.

If this were a real bar, you'd leave before finishing your first drink.