COMEDY
Crumbs is a sitcom that might have been dreamed up by Dr. Phil as he listened to some woman's wrenchingly sad tale and idly thought how fun it'd be to turn on a switch and add a laugh track. This dysfunctional family sitcom with Fred Savage and Jane Curtin means well: Pick at those psychic scabs—a mother hobbled by a breakdown, an ex-husband who never goes away, a gay son with commitment issues, his estranged brother and a dead brother whose drowning haunts them all—and expose them to the salutary air of rude comedy. But it just doesn't work. It splutters. Curtin, as the mom, does a nice job balancing suburban-matron crispness and wacked-out unpredictability. Savage, as the gay son, is like a puppy confused by too much company. Which is perhaps understandable.
