TV Detail: Will Kath & Kim be any good?

We've been seeing previews for NBC's Kath & Kim for nearly two months now (ever since the Olympics, remember those?!). But tonight's the night, folks: At 8:30 p.m. Paste time, we will finally know for certain whether this show is a really big piece of crap, or just a regular-sized piece of crap.

To be fair, there is a chance that it will not be any size piece of crap at all. It might actually be good! And believe me, I would really like it to be good, because it should be: NBC has some of the best comedies on TV right now, the original series was apparently quite popular down under, Molly Shannon is very funny and Selma Blair... well, I don't know much about her, but she has a really pretty name that I would hate to see tarnished by a flaming suck-fest sitcom.

However, the previews for Kath & Kim-- which I have seen many different versions of, many times each, because NBC is the only station that comes in clearly on my rabbit-ear antennas at home, so I watch it a lot, way more than I should, which is ridiculous once I stop to think about it, because the whole reason I opted not to get cable in the first place was so that I wouldn't waste my life away in front of the television, but I'm still managing to do that somehow, so many hours wasted, I even watch the Insider sometimes, isn't that absolutely pathetic, but at least it's free, right?-- do not bode well for its success.

First of all, they are kind of not funny. I genuinely laughed at one of them, the one in which Blair's character bursts into her old bedroom and gasps, “You've turned it into a Curves!” But that's just because I think Curves is funny. I mean, I giggle when I see actual Curves signs at strip malls, so that really isn't saying much. Except that I laugh pretty easily. At stupid things. Which means I should love this show. Right? I'm still not so sure.

Secondly, this is a half-hour comedy, meaning there are about 22 minutes of actual content, but I feel like we must have seen at least 18 of those minutes in the previews already. In fact, I feel confident enough in my knowledge of the Kath & Kim previews to offer this summary of its pilot, four hours before airtime:

Kath and Kim are a mother-and-daughter pair. Kim gets married to some guy, who's sweet but stupid. She's stupid but mean, and doesn't understand basic wedding traditions, so she gets pissed when he rubs cake in her face when they get married and somehow this leads to her dumping him and moving back in with her mother. Her mom has turned her bedroom into a Curves (oh man, I cannot even contain myself) so she has to sleep on a treadmill (I only hope this is true). Her husband keeps coming over to try and win her back and they have silly fights involving glass doors that prove his stupidity and her meanness (and stupidity). The plot thickens when Kath reveals to her daughter that she is dating some man who wears sweatsuits and vaguely resembles Fred Willard, but is not Fred Willard (too bad). This is awkward for obvious reasons: It's not Kim's dad, it means her mom is having sex, but hopefully not on her treadmill-bed, because that would just be too strange. Also, uncomfortable and dangerous. Kim's discomfort with the whole situation, plus her stupidity, puts pressure on her mother, who fights with Mr. Sweatsuits, and runs off to a drag bar to drown her sorrows in fruity drinks. She discovers that one of the drag queens is Kim's pseudo-husband (okay, not really, but I'm kind of losing steam) but then Mr. Sweatsuits arrives to take her home, because she “butt-dialed him with [her] cell phone” (this actually happens).

And by that he means, “I've implanted you with a micro-chip tracking device. You are mine now!” because how could he know where she was just from a butt-dial, but Kath won't learn this until episode six, which we will never see, because the show will probably be canceled, maybe even before 8:30 p.m. tonight, in which case I will never know if my predictions are correct. Though I hope that doesn't happen. Like I said, it might actually be good!