To get right to the point, “Committed” (8:30 p.m., NBC) is dreadful. But like all disasters, it’s interesting in its own way. Students of the moribund sitcom genre will find it worthy of study, like a cadaver ready for autopsy.

Let’s start with the casting and cookie-cutter story. Josh Cooke plays Nate, a “brilliant” guy paralyzed by neuroses and phobias. He’s so frightened of his genius that he buries himself in clutter and works at a used record store. He meets Marni (Jennifer Finnegan) on a blind date. Unfortunately, she was supposed to be somebody else’s blind date. She’s spunky, impulsive and giving. In short, everything Nate is not.

In the shorthand of comedy development, “Committed” is “Dharma & Greg” meets “High Fidelity.” Except it lacks the witty, wise satire of “Fidelity,” and both characters are Dharma. But that really doesn’t matter much, because Nate half-resembles Adam Sandler and Marni looks and acts like a poor man’s Kate Hudson.

Remember, class, to make a sitcom you need a situation and a comedy. One of the many reasons that sitcoms are dying (if they’re not already dead) is that their writers create situations that no longer ring true or funny. Take the record store in “Committed.” When Nick Hornby wrote the novel on which “High Fidelity” is based in the mid-1990s, record stores were already quaint artifacts of the vinyl era quickly passing from the scene. And when John Cusack starred in the 2000 screen adaptation, several critics cited how dated the record-store setting seemed. We’re now five years beyond that film, but the writers of “Committed” are still flogging the same outmoded situation.

And speaking of flogging anachronisms, let’s discuss the “comedy” in “Committed.” In one of the show’s first scenes, Marni complains to all concerned about her inability to find a man. A middle-aged dry cleaner turns to her and says, “My wife and I met during a pogrom, chased by Cossacks.” That would make him more than a hundred years old! Now, pogrom jokes may have had them rolling in the aisles at Grossinger’s in 1956, but they seem a tad stale now. Woody Allen made a Cossack joke in “Annie Hall” (nearly 30 years ago), and he was talking about his grandmother.

And in the spirit of Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” character, Alvie Singer, let us bury a stake in the dying heart of the laugh track. Comedy producers have defended the annoying device for decades, arguing that, while it is a cheap trick, audiences love it and complain when it isn’t used. “Committed” features a pulverizing laugh track, arguably the loudest I’ve heard in years. But audiences won’t complain about it because they won’t be watching “Committed.” Let’s look on the bright side. If this show contributes to the abolition of the laugh track, it will not have died in vain.

• Ex-cons adjust to life outside prison in “A Hard Straight” on “Independent Lens” (10 p.m., KCPT).

Tonight’s other highlights

• Steven Cojocaru and Lara Spencer host “Red Carpet Confidential” (7 p.m., CBS) and talk to celebrities.
• Caroline Rhea hosts the last weigh-in as the contestants are cut down to three on “The Biggest Loser” (7 p.m., NBC).
• College football in the Orange Bowl (7 p.m., ABC).
• Branson spirits his final pair to a private island on “The Rebel Billionaire” (7 p.m., Fox).
• A mother-daughter double date turns awkward on “Gilmore Girls” (7 p.m., WB).
• “Welcome to Mars” on “Nova” (7 p.m., PBS) looks back at the year since the Mars Rover started poking around on the red planet.
• A major league baseball player’s comeback is short-circuited by mysterious bone loss on “House” (8 p.m., Fox).
• An examination of George W. Bush’s faith in “The Jesus Factor” on “Frontline” (9 p.m., KCPT)
• Scheduled on “Dateline” (9 p.m., NBC): an interview with Amber Frey.

Series notes

Liar, liar on “All of Us” (7 p.m., UPN) … Brooke Burke guest stars on “Eve” (7:30 p.m., UPN).

Switched at birth on “Veronica Mars” (8 p.m., UPN) … Nerds are people, too, on “High School Reunion” (8 p.m., WB).

Late night

Alicia Keys chats on “Late Show with David Letterman” (10:35 p.m., CBS) … Jay Leno hosts Kate Winslet, Thomas Haden Church and Howie Day on “The Tonight Show” (10:35 p.m., NBC).

Brad Pitt and Janet Jackson are booked on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” (11:35 p.m., NBC).