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News flash: Some women like to drink and have sex. A lot.

Jordin Althaus, NBC
Laura Prepon plays Chelsea; Chelsea Handler instead plays her religious, judgmental sister.
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Jordin Althaus, NBC
Laura Prepon plays Chelsea; Chelsea Handler instead plays her religious, judgmental sister.

There. You’ve absorbed everything Are You There, Chelsea? has to offer. Feel free to spend your evening elsewhere.
Though next time NBC has that little on its corporate mind, let’s hope the network airs a PSA instead and spares us another punishingly awful sitcom.
Aside from the questions Chelsea (NBC, tonight, 8:30 ET/PT, * out of four)raises about NBC’s comedy direction, the only marginally interesting thing about this adaption of Chelsea Handler’s book Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea, is that it stars Handler herself — but not as herself. Laura Prepon plays Chelsea, and Handler plays her older “judgey, super-Christian” sister, Sloane.
Age may be one of the reasons for this odd bit of casting: The book mostly centered on Handler’s younger years. But watching her as Sloane, it’s just as likely someone realized, whatever one may think of Handler as author, stand-up or host, she displays neither the acting skills nor star appeal to carry a prime-time sitcom. The mistake NBC was in thinking Prepon could do significantly better with this misbegotten part. Her character is as unpleasant and unamusing as Handler’s. She just smiles more.
This version of Handler’s life opens with Chelsea in jail on a drunken driving charge, praying to vodka for help. Released, she vows to change her life — not by reducing her drinking, but by moving closer to the bar where she works so she won’t have to drive.
That contrivance is enough to set up the show’s two main locations: The bar, where she works with her best friend Olivia (Ali Wong), and the new apartment she and the equally wild Olivia share with the naïve, virginal Dee Dee (Lauren Lapkus). And oh, the fun they have making fun of Dee Dee’s virginity.
Vulgarity and lack of taste aren’t the issues here as much as a deadening single-mindedness. Almost every joke that’s not about Chelsea’s desire to drink is about her desire to have sex (or, if a red-haired man is involved, not have sex). It’s enough to make CBS’ Monday lineup look classy by comparison.
If you like, consider Chelsea the unintended consequence of broadcast’s stricter standards. On cable, they’d just show her having sex and be done with it. But since broadcast can’t show, and can’t use profanity to describe, it now compensates by making a hundred euphemism-laden jokes for each of cable’s one. It’s death by a thousand small cut-ups.
As usual on TV, all is not lost. Lapkus is a bit much in the premiere, but later she settles down enough to show some comic promise — and even now she’s the only break from the overarching snide, nasty tone. There also are a few amusing moments from Rescue Me’s Lenny Clarke as Chelsea’s father, though you can’t help hoping Denis Leary will rescue him from this disaster and give him a better show.

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LONDON – From whale sperm to colon cleansers to the shape of a woman’s foot when she has an orgasm, celebrities did not disappoint during 2011 with their penchant for peddling suspect science in the world’s media.

In its annual list of what it considers the year’s worst abuses against science, the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign named U.S. reality TV star Nicole Polizzi, Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann and American singer-songwriter Suzi Quatro as top offenders, with their dubious views on why the sea is salty, the risks of cervical cancer vaccines and the colon.

“I used to get a lot of sore throats and then one of my sisters told me that all illnesses start in the colon. I started taking a daily colon cleanser powder mixed with fresh juice every morning and it made an enormous difference,” Quatro told the Daily Mail newspaper.

But SAS was keen to dispel such myths. It asked qualified scientists from various disciplines to comment on some of the worst celebrity science offences.

“The colon is very important in some diseases, but it certainly is not the cause of all illnesses,” said Melita Gordon, a consultant gastroenterologist said in the review.

“Sore throats do not come from your colon; they are caused by viruses that come in through your nose and mouth. Taking ‘colon cleansers’ has no beneficial effect on your throat – or on your colon.”

While the review is partly about entertainment, the campaign group stresses it also has a serious aim – to make sure pseudo-science is not allowed to become accepted as true.

After Bachmann used an appearance on a U.S. television show to tell a story of a woman from Tampa, Florida, who said her daughter had become “mentally retarded” after getting an HPV vaccine designed to protect against cervical cancer, doctors said they feared the damage done may take many years to reverse.

“It’s tempting to dismiss celebrity comments on science and health, but their views travel far and wide and, once uttered, a celebrity cancer prevention idea or environmental claim is hard to reverse,” said SAS’s managing director Tracey Brown.

“At a time when celebrities dominate the public realm, the pressure for sound science and evidence must keep pace.”

The review also highlighted a bizarre quote from U.S. TV personality Polizzi, who declared recently: “I don’t really like the beach. I hate sharks, and the water’s all whale sperm. That’s why the ocean’s salty.”

Simon Boxall, a marine expert and oceanographer dismissed Polizzi’s suggestion. “It would take a lot of whale sperm to make the sea that salty,” he said.

Some of the most intriguing pseudo-scientific suggestions came via repeated second hand information picked up at parties – never the most reliable source.

Christian Louboutin, a French footwear designer, was taken with something a fellow party guest told him about shoes.

“She said that what is sexual in a high heel is the arch of the foot, because it is exactly the position of a woman’s foot when she orgasms. So putting your foot in a heel, you are putting yourself in a possibly orgasmic situation,” he explained.

Kevan Wylie, a consultant in sexual medicine, responded drily that it’s important to differentiate cause from effect.

“A woman’s foot may be in this position during orgasm, but that does not mean that putting her foot into this position under other circumstances will result in orgasm,” he said.

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