Shameless | D

With a name like "Shameless," you would think the show was about reality contestants willing to do whatever it takes to make some fast cash. Instead, Shameless is an hour-long drama on Showtime.

The show centers on an alcoholic named Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy) and his highly dysfunctional family. The show is based off of an award-winning British series by the same name. Set in Chicago, Frank spends his days drunker than a skunk, and when he's not abusing his children, he's ignoring them.

Fiona (Emmy Rossum) is his oldest and the family's de facto mother, as his wife is MIA. Then there is Lip (Jeremy White) who is the family brain. Ian (Cameron Monaghan) is a sexually confused child with hopes of becoming a paratrooper. Carl (Ethan Cutkosky) is the family psychopath who takes great pleasure in torturing animals . The children are rounded out by Debbie (Emma Kenney) and the youngest, Liam (Brennan Kane Johnson) who is a brother from another father.

The kids make it a point to keep the household running and making sure their Dad does not drink himself to death. They forge signatures, look after the baby and make sure that everything is taken care of. In some sense the show is about taking care of one another regardless of circumstance, yet it is pretentious in its attempt to show the lives of people who live below the poverty line and live with alcoholism.

It has its humorous moments, like some of Frank's drunken antics, but Shameless unfortunately is very similar to a formulaic cop/mystery show where you have a murder, some leads and then poof at the end they find the killer. Except in this case you have an abusive drunken father, kids who work around it even though they don't like it, the stories of their everyday lives and then back to dad again.

The British version is far better, even though the acting on the show done by the children in the Showtime version is solid, it does not make the show as brilliant as it could be. The producers are trying too hard to be risqué and evoke emotion from the viewers. Overall, it's not worth the time or the effort.