Jonathan Storm | Sex, sex and more sex: How dull

Tell Me You Love Me

, demands HBO's new drama series, premiering Sunday at 9 p.m.

Sorry. I don't love you, and I'm never going to have sex with you.

Too bad some of the people in the show don't say that to each other. It would provide a little variety in the most monotonously copulative new TV series since Rome, which at least had history and wars and plenty of blood and guts to keep things interesting.

(Here's a little warning: This article is going to focus on sex and swearing - not that there will actually be any - but I'll be referring to them at length. So if you have tender sensibilities or better things to do than contemplate those topics, why not just move along to the Pearls Before Swine comic strip, which is very funny, or maybe the sudoku puzzle, which is supposed to be the latest rage.)

The two big premium networks, HBO and Showtime, are in a bit of a tizzy over sex and swearing these days. They don't have to abide by any particular rules, so they're trying to show you how wild and edgy they can be. Maybe they think it's "moving forward."

Actually, Showtime's slogan used to be "No Rules." Sort of snooze-inducing, so now they've changed it to "The Best . . . on Television." (The left-out word starts with "S," and isn't "stuff.")

The channel has devised a two-minute promo, which you can see at www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNu6xwyRwlk, with clips of its original programming set to a tune from the New York improv group Centralia. It's pretty funny.

So are its two current comedies, Weeds, about a suburban mom/gangster marijuana dealer, and Californication, about a lout with writer's block who tries to drown his sorrows in sex.

Weeds, which stars preternaturally adorable Mary-Louise Parker, doesn't have a whole lot of sex, but has plenty of swearing. The language is appropriate to the tone of the show and helps make it one of the best on TV.

Californication, which stars endlessly ironic David Duchovny, has so many sex scenes they become tedious. It took me a while to realize that I was actually fast-forwarding through them, when, as a diligent observer of the visual media, I had always watched similar activity, when it came along in my job, very carefully, often frame by frame.

Duchovny and his character and his family, acquaintances and milieu are reasonably amusing, but they would be much more so, and more sympathetic, if there weren't quite so much fornication, though it must be said that 21-year-old Madeline Zima has grown up nicely since she played little Grace Sheffield on The Nanny in the '90s.

It seems like Showtime needs a daddy, or a kindly teacher, to pat it on the head and remind it that all this excess might be endlessly diverting in the boys' bathroom, or late at night where it's resided for decades, but that it isn't necessarily amusing in prime time.

Which brings us back to Tell Me You Love Me, about three couples with intimacy problems, who all go to the same therapist, who has problems of her own.

And that's what it's about. There's no intrigue, no entertainment, and the show's motion, when there is any, is so s-l-o-w, it's virtually undetectable.

So how to put a little spice in such a dreary exercise? You got it.

Couple No. 1 is engaged, but she hears him tell his buddy he really doesn't expect to be faithful to her throughout the marriage, which makes her decide she probably doesn't want to marry him. Still, the sex is good, and since they're young and cute, it gets shown the most.

Couple No. 2 has been trying to get pregnant for a year, which has changed the nature of their sex, and they're all, "Maybe I'm not adequate."

Couple No. 3 (thankfully) doesn't have much sex. In fact, they don't have any, even though they are still very much in love and share all their family responsibilities, etc.

Even the therapist, played by Jane Alexander, 67, will get into the action, so to speak, which lots of people say is brave and wonderful.

Most of the other actors (Ally Walker of Profiler and Carnivale's Tim DeKay are the most famous) are brave and pretty good, too, saddled with their depressing situations and frequent need to bare more than their souls.

Therapists get - what? - $100 an hour to put up with this stuff, and HBO wants us to pay them?

TV Review

Tell Me You Love Me

Debuts at 9 p.m. Sunday on HBO