On TV: JONAS

The Jonas Brothers play semi-catchy, over-produced pop songs about young love and are one of Disney's hottest properties. Now, they have a semi-catchy, over-produced Disney Channel show about the problems any superstar sibling boy group face when forced to interact with regular society. It's not as anarchic as The Monkees or brilliant as Flight of the Conchords, but at least it's better than the other recycled garbage on Disney. A hearty endorsement, indeed.

For readers who were recently released from Guantanamo or lack tween cousins, here's a quick primer on the Jonas Brothers phenomenon. Joe is the hot, swarthy lead singer, Nick is the serious, slightly-less-hot multi-instrumentalist who writes all the songs, and Kevin is the eldest and the one tweenage girls would have the best chance of scoring with, if he and his brothers would just take off their purity rings. On JONAS - their last name has become an all-caps mass noun - they play a version of themselves, only their last name is Lucas, and their band on the show is called Jonas. But confusing naming schemes are of little importance when you live in a tricked-out firehouse and spend all of your time at school in a glass-enclosed courtyard.

Nick is the focus of the first episode, writing a romantic song for a girl who already has a boyfriend. Some version of that plot will probably always be present, as the Jonas trio looks more comfortable singing or talking about music than delivering their lines. Joe and Kevin flutter around the edge of Nick's problems, underplaying various broad gags (fake mustaches, a monocle take) and dictating lines ripped from an 11-year-old's conceptions of love: "Nick, you always fall too hard, too fast." But those moments where JONAS superficially acknowledges the youth image machine that makes Disney millions of dollars are actually the best parts of the show, and it might be worth checking back in on Saturday nights to see how meta they can go.

This wouldn't be the Disney Channel without something shrill and obnoxious pretty much ruining the soup. That's the B-plot, consisting of personal stylist Stella (Chelsea Staub) working on new rip-away outfits for the boys with psycho Jonas super-fan Macy (Nicole Gale Anderson). Maybe they are trying to parody real-life rabid tween fans, but that joke's been old since A Hard Day's Night.

As we learned in Camp Rock, the last acting gig for the JoBros, Joe (or Joe's bangs) can pass for sensitive and misunderstood, so maybe he doesn't have to say his lines so flatly in future episodes. The semi-single camera directing and at-times muted lighting are a welcome change of pace from the other Disney Channel shows that look and feel like the worst episodes of Saved by the Bell.

Perusing a few of the early negative reviews of JONAS, it seems like many critics do not watch the other programming on the Disney Channel. The other tween idol vehicles - - Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, Sonny With a Chance -- contain writing so unoriginal and laugh tracks so loud that it's hard to discern what is happening between all the histrionic acting and punch lines that couldn't jab their way out of an officially-licensed Hannah Montana pencil case. JONAS is less annoying, has no laugh track, and is now the best part of Disney Channel's line-up, which is like saying that Italy was the best part of World War II's Axis powers. Yeah, it's not that good, but the alternatives (Miley Cyrus/Selena Gomez/Demi Lovato) are much more frightening.

5.5 out of 10