By Curt Schleier
   
There was a rumor flying around the television business a year or so ago that a consortium of network executives had contacted the federal government about buying the Grand Canyon. Apparently, the Lords of Television were looking for a safe place to dump their failed shows.
   
Of course the deal never went through.  Someone in accounting did the math.  The Grand Canyon wasn’t big enough.
   
So, a decision was made to burn the old sitcoms. By burn, of course, we mean in a politically correct and environmentally-friendly way. How? Put the episodes that were paid for by the network, but unaired — the very episodes deemed so terrible that they warranted the cancellation of the show — yes, put those remaining episodes on the air.  However, TV execs by law subscribe to the Hypocrite’s Oath: First, do no harm. So the shows are aired when no one is watching and likely to be hurt.
   
This of course brings us to the burning of THE LOOP (Sundays 8:30 p.m. on Fox) — a series that lasted a few episodes last fall before it was, I believe, the term is “put on hiatus.” (That sounds so much better than axed, doesn’t it?)
   
For those of you who missed it the first time around, THE LOOP is about that time in life after college when a boy becomes a man — when he makes that transition from slacker to worker; when he has his job mitzvah.
   
Sam (Bret Harrison) is a junior executive at a Chicago-based headquarters of a large international airline. He’s surrounded by jealous co-workers; an attractive boss who makes constant passes at him, Meryl (Mimi Rogers); a dipsy secretary (Joy Osmanski); an older and still unemployed brother (Eric Christian Olsen) and the gruff boss (Philip Baker Hall). In short, pretty much the entire stereotypical lineup.
   
In the first of the new episodes, the airline is in financial straights. In order to survive, it needs to get landing rights to Reykjavik, the new “in” city in Iceland. A delegation from Iceland is coming to the airline’s office for a negotiation session. Sam, who took Nordic studies in college, is assigned to get an appropriate welcome gift. Here is what then transpires, in order:
   
    1. He gets the gift and momentarily leaves it on the receptionist’s desk.
    2. Someone mistakenly throws the gift away.
    3. Less than two minutes later, the gift is in a dumpster outside the building.
    4. Sam finds it, but the dumpster is picked up by a garbage truck with him in it.
    5. Sam returns to the office all dirty and Meryl tells him to use the shower in her office. She’ll find him a new suit.
    6. After the shower, the only suit Sam sees is Meryl’s, so he puts it on and wears it the meeting.
    7. Believing Sam to be gay, a junior member of the Icelandic delegation is assigned to go clubbing with him it order to elicit information on the most the airline will pay for landing rights.
    8.  All works out in the end.
   
There were a couple of chuckles in THE LOOP, though not many. But the lack of laughs isn’t what bothered me about the show. If I’m watching a show and counting the number of stupid things that happen — the coincidences, the flukes — I’m not getting invested in the story.  And, I’ll bet  you won’t be either