SITCOMS EXPLORE THE TIES THAT GRIND.

Byline: David Kronke TV Critic

This season will see the premiere of a lot of sitcoms about unconventional family living arrangements, most involving parents and grown children living in uncomfortably close environs or adult siblings moving in together.

NBC begins the lovefest tonight. In ``Whoopi,'' Whoopi Goldberg stars as a one-hit-wonder soul singer running a small New York hotel where her brother (late of Enron) freeloads. ``Happy Family'' (no, the title's not meant to be taken literally) stars sitcom veterans John Larroquette and Christine Baranski as a married couple who, as their youngest son, an epic underachiever, is about to stumble out of the nest, realize that all three of their grown children are hopeless misfits.

This trend has obviously been inspired by CBS' hit ``Everybody Loves Raymond,'' in which too much family is piled into too little real estate. It's also, in case you hadn't noticed, another somewhat sardonically titled show - none of the characters really likes Ray (and this, even before the season's contract negotiations began), they either domineer or resent him.

``Happy Family,'' the better of the two programs debuting tonight, concerns a father (Larroquette's Peter Brennan) who is openly contemptuous of his daughter and slacker younger son and whose pride in his older son is demonstrably delusional and misplaced.

Tonight's debut opens as Tim (Tyler Francavilla) plans finally to graduate from junior college. That doesn't quite work out, and neither does daughter Sara's (Melanie Paxson) hopes to find true love. Peter and wife Anne (Baranski) kick Tim out but can't manage to rid themselves of Sara. When Tim moves in with the divorcee next door (Susan Gibney) - whom, despite their affair, he still refers to as ``Mrs. Harris'' - the Brennans run to their ostensibly well-adjusted son, Todd (Jeff Davis), for advice, only to discover that he's cheating on his too-chipper fiancee.

Anne observes of the Brennans' parental skills, ``I'm beginning to think we didn't do a very good job.''

Creators Moses Port and David Guarascio have created a dense thicket of neuroses for the Brennans to machete their way through. Larroquette and Baranski are old pros who wring effortless laughs from the material. Paxson is fun as a fusspot whose high-strung nature seems to have seized her larynx and won't let go, forcing her to squeak out her lines like a cartoon mouse in a cat's paw, while Francavilla seems a natural as a slacker (we'll let him decide whether that's a compliment).

The unhappiest aspect of ``Happy Family'' is its time slot - the 8 p.m. hour on NBC has been where sitcoms go to die for several seasons now, and its lead-in, ``Whoopi,'' may be too acquired a taste to help the Brennans.

``Whoopi,'' starring Goldberg as New York hotelier Mavis Rae, careens in many directions simultaneously. It wants to be vaguely edgy and wholly contemporary: One character is Nasim (Omid Djalili), an Iranian handyman who, it's hinted virtually every five minutes, has ties to terrorists. Mavis' brother Courtney (Wren T. Brown) is a beleaguered Buppie whose white girlfriend Rita (Elizabeth Regen) is blacker than he is.

Through it all, Mavis smokes, drinks and derisively insults and threatens all around her. Goldberg fans should be satisfied, but the comic scarcely seems to be working, feeding wholly off her mildly scabrous persona.

Nasim is a new character for prime-time TV, but so far the writers are pushing him way too hard. ``I haven't felt so oppressed since the Ayatollah blew up my beach house,'' he laments. Ha, ha. ``It's more dead than Saddam's first defense minister,'' he says elsewhere. Djalili scarcely gets a line that doesn't refer to Nasim's Middle Eastern roots: We get it, already. (Also, one wonders what happens should there be another terrorist attack or tensions with Iran heighten.)

The real scene-stealer here is Regan as the reversed Oreo cookie, whose take on white kids playing at being black - whether to survive mean streets or strike a callow suburban pose - is hilariously dead-on. I don't think the writers have actually written a joke for Regan to deliver, but her every line reading garners laughs.

``Whoopi's'' problem is that it retreats from its dark vision of a skittish metropolis in suddenly mean times to standard sitcom dopiness. In episode two, Nasim is fretting about a misplaced briefcase he's certain contains a bomb. But when the bomb squad destroys it, it turns out - you guessed it - it was Courtney's, a gift from Rita. In two years, we've gone from abject fear of terrorists to using them for age-old rim-shot gags.

Apropos of nothing, ``Whoopi'' employs the Rolling Stones' chestnut ``You Can't Always Get Want You Want'' as its theme music. In this case, what one wants is sharper writing - were it better, ``Whoopi'' could be the first sitcom specially tailored for the new millennium; as is, it's just a typical sitcom posing as something more provocative.

David Kronke, [phone]

david.kronke(at)dailynews.com

WHOOPI - Two and one half stars

What: Comic Goldberg stars as the proprietor of a small hotel.

Where: NBC (Channel 4).

When: 8 tonight.

In a nutshell: More tweaking and the formula could work; it's not there yet, though.

HAPPY FAMILY - Three stars

What: Parents portrayed by John Larroquette and Christine Baranski discover that their three grown kids are dysfunctional losers.

Where: NBC (Channel 4).

When: 8:30 tonight.

In a nutshell: You did notice that the title's intended to be ironic, right?

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2) Whoopi Goldberg, left, stars in ``Whoopi,'' and Christine Baranski and John Larroquette preside over a ``Happy Family,'' both on NBC.