‘The Sarah Silverman Program’

Some cultural products are critic-proof -- but not in the way we usually use the term. Instead of being beyond reproach, some shows deserve nothing but. They court it, even.

Given that, evaluating “The Sarah Silverman Program� (Comedy Central, Thursdays at 10:30 p.m.) by anything approximating conventional standards feels like knowingly participating in a hidden-camera show designed to take advantage of one’s earnestness.

Now in its third season, this show is ripe with laser-targeted poor taste. The dialogue is seemingly written expressly to test the comfort and boundaries of copy editors at family-friendly newspapers: light on actual vulgarities, heavy on allusions and squeamish wordplay. Its humor is either low or absurdist, or both. The acting is deliberately broad. All in all, it’s closest in sentiment to “Pee-wee’s Playhouse� -- even the color palette is bold but without the childlike sense of wonder.

Which might all be fine, if there weren’t a nagging desire for meaning on this show. Silverman and her colleagues may go far, far out of their way to mask it, but it’s there, making each episode a war between serious conceits and foolish execution.

The show has a basic sitcom character array: Sarah, her sister Laura (Laura Silverman), her gay-couple friends Brian (Brian Posehn) and Steve (Steve Agee), and her sister’s boyfriend Jay (Jay Johnston). Two weeks ago, Sarah became frustrated with a new neighbor, Slip, who presented her with a series of yuk-yuks straight out of the home-ordering magic-trick catalog. She hoped to prank him back, but ended up killing him, which spurred a series of events leading up to her taking over all programming decisions for her local TV station. From that perch, she realized everything she scheduled was dangerous, or more to the point, that nothing was. “The problem isn’t the media,� she said, straight to the camera, talking to the home viewer on the show and, by extension, to us: “It’s you. You’re dumb. You’re all dumb.�

In the previous episode, Sarah briefly became a children’s TV host, and became obsessed with wooden mittens as protective gear -- an absurdist stroke that felt like a commentary on do-gooder children’s television. (The logo of her network, Kid Time, was a bite of the Nickelodeon logo.) Moments like the wooden-mittens incident are as unhinged as any show not on a public access channel, but there are flashes of savvy that help bring shape to the proceedings.

Each episode features one or more cute, whimsical songs a la Ween or “Weird Al� Yankovic -- they’re patently ridiculous, but almost always artful. (“From Our Rears to Your Ears,� a collection of the show’s ditties, will be released this week on CD.) And Silverman is adept at imposing a dash of rigor on her small cast.

The show also has a penchant for scoring intelligent guests. Bill Maher has appeared as himself, and last week’s episode featured Bradley Whitford as mayoral candidate Toby Grossnickel, and, in a “West Wing� wink, Joshua Malina as a city official. That episode was the one this season whose potty humor was most likely to be undone by its latent sincerity. Grossnickel was running on a pledge of legalizing gay marriage, but was stymied by Sarah, who staged a write-in campaign for a fictitious pun-named person, May Kadoody, only to have that person win the election, and then find out there was indeed a person with that name after all.

The real Kadoody outlaws gay marriage, and brunch too -- a vivid parody of conservative fun-squelching. Sarah takes action, spying on Kadoody until damning evidence forces her from office. At the end of the episode, Brian and Steve finally marry, but just as the two are about to seal the union with a kiss -- an actual taboo, worthy of being shattered -- Grossnickel interjects, insisting, “Nobody wants to see that.� Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. Why so shy?

[email protected]