The women choose to be alone. The men have no choice.
Four thirtysomethings, all a little odd, make up “Weird Loners,” a sitcom set in Queens. It’s true to TV fiction — one lives larger than possible.
“It is TV, so we have to be a little ridiculous,” says Becki Newton of her character, Caryn Goldfarb, a dental hygienist with a lovely townhouse, the focal point of the new Fox show that debuts Tuesday at 9:30 p.m.
She plays the adopted daughter of a Long Island Jewish family. Her mom and nana, pretty familiar characters, only want her to marry Howard, a nice Jewish dermatologist.
Caryn tries. She really does, and even goes so far as to almost cook a meal — or burn down her kitchen, depending on one’s perspective. Stosh (Zachary Knighton) freeloading off his cousin, Eric (Nate Torrence), hears the smoke alarm, helps her and within moments is seducing her.
Caryn never loved Howard anyway. As Caryn tries to figure out her life, Zara (Meera Rohit Kumbhani), an artist, leaves her live-in lover. She’s bored beyond reason.
Eric buys one of Zara’s God-awful paintings, and she winds up moving in with Caryn on the day they meet. Well, this is a sitcom and these sorts of relationships happen. In the pilot, the cousins, Eric, a sweet lummox working as a toll collector, and Stosh, a slimy salesman who keeps getting fired for sexual transgressions, room up and the women become roomies. The house Eric grew up in is next door to Caryn’s.
Caryn is, “the neediest person on Earth,” Newton says. “Think of your neediest friend and multiply her by 5,000 and that’s Caryn Goldfarb.”
Creator Michael Weithorn calls it an “an unromantic comedy.”
“They get in each other’s way any chance they get,” Newton says.
After the scheduled six episodes, Newton says she hopes Caryn, “winds up right back where she started.”
