The Details

Wilfred

Thursdays, 10 p.m., FX

You certainly can’t say that Wilfred has an unoriginal premise: The comedy features actor Jason Gann (co-creator and star of the original Australian version) in a cheap-looking dog suit as the title character, whom everyone except neurotic loser Ryan (Elijah Wood) sees as an ordinary dog. Ryan and Wilfred have a familiar dude-bonding dynamic, with Wilfred as the overbearing jerk who constantly pushes Ryan out of his comfort zone. That familiarity is the show’s main problem: It uses this utterly strange setup to tell some pretty conventional sitcom-style stories, and Ryan’s unrequited love for Wilfred’s owner, Jenna (Fiona Gubelmann), who naturally has an asshole boyfriend, is as tired a TV-show device as they come. There are sporadically funny bits that play up the contrast between Wilfred’s canine nature and human appearance (a scene in which he chases a laser pointer is particularly amusing), but mostly the show takes its oddball premise and makes it disappointingly mundane.