This is the new Fox comedy by Matt Nix who created one of my favorite dramas, “Burn Notice” on USA. I had great hopes for it and it is silly without being stupid, but I find myself losing interest. I think too much of Bradley Whitford’s intelligence seeps out. Let me explain.

Johnny Depp’s reckless pirate is said to be modeled on Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. There is an untethered quality to his performance. Bradley Whitford seems to play Dan Stark with a tongue-in-cheek quality that undercuts the show’s premise of “unearned confidence” as showcased in the movie “Talladega Nights.” He needs to play it more as Lt. Col. Oliver North; brilliant, effective, amoral, ruthless, charming and irresistible. A loose cannon who can get the most astonishing things done. Ollie North was so charming that the ACLU got his felony convictions vacated, even through many Americans thought he was a traitorous drug smuggler and others considered him a national hero who saved Central America from communism.

It must be very hard to play a character with the emotional abandonment of Johnny Depp’s pirate.