The "twist" in this series is that the dad character (given the Oh-so-creative alliterative name "Ozzy Osbourne") is a famous heavy-metal musician. I guess that's why MTV feels the show belongs on their station. Don't be fooled by the rock connection, though. Aside from that only occasionally-touched on plot point, The Osbournes doesn't have anything new to show us.

The contrived lead charcaters.

First, let's take a look at the central characters. Completely stock. No surprises. Covering "Ozzy" with tattoos doesn't cover up the fact that he's just another dimwit dad character from a long stereotypical line. Just like every dad character from The Berenstein Bears to Homer Simpson, this dad is a slow-brained buffoon who gets in wacky scrapes, seems gruff, but deep-down (surprise!) loves his family dearly.

The rest are just as bad. There's bratty bad-boy Jack, kooky-but-surprisingly competent mom Sharon, and weird but more normal than the rest daughter Kelly. It's the Munsters meet the Simpsons meet Roseanne meet practically every other sitcom in the last several decades.

About the only thing different about the show itself are it's horrible production values. It looks like the entire budget was spent on the elaborate set, and nothing was left over for anything else. The camera work is shaky beyond any stylistic intention. The editing is strange and hap-hazard and frequently obscures storylines (such as they are). There is absolutely no regard to continuity. Watch the kids' hair for the worst offenses here -hairstyles (even hairCUTS) will drastically change (and change BACK) from one scene to the next.

Then there's the strange marketing campaign behind this show. The Osbournes is the latest production to copy the once-innovative internet campaign behind "The Blair Witch Project" - there are sites all over the net that pretend as though Ozzy and his clan are real life people. I'm not sure how they think this kind of gimmickry adds anything to the show. The hours of creative effort put toward photoshopping old pictures of the cast and writing bizarre back stories (frequent mentions of Ozzy biting animals!) would be better spent trying to improve the show itself.