Whenever I’m faced with a sitcom misfire like “Hot Properties” (8:30 p.m., ABC), I’m forced to wonder about the process that created it. Did a group of writers and producers sit around and say, “Hey, let’s take ‘Designing Women’ and tart it up with dreadful sexual innuendo and crude jokes about bodily fluids and promiscuity”? Just wondering.

It’s too bad this property must be condemned, because the premise hearkens back to classic sitcoms, and the cast is not without promise and chemistry. “Hot” takes place at a posh real estate agency in Manhattan. Ava (Gail O’Grady) tries to project the image of the serene blonde boss when not fraught with anxiety about her marriage to a much younger (and unseen) man. Her neurotic bookkeeper, Chloe (Nicole Sullivan, “Mad TV”), can’t find a man, or even a date, and obsesses nonstop about best-sellers like “He’s Just Not That Into You.” There’s also Dr. Boyd (Evan Handler, “Sex and the City”), a psychiatrist who works next door and pops in for coffee on occasion, and Dr. Charlie Thorpe (Stephen Dunham), a brash plastic surgeon who also mooches free coffee. In the two episodes provided for review, he talks about breasts in every scene in which he appears.

“Hot” is worth watching just once just to see what Nicole Sullivan can do with even the worst material. She’s got great, manic energy and impeccable timing. Unfortunately, she has to work with some pretty bad and obvious jokes with punch lines you can see, or rather smell, a mile away.

Tonight’s other highlights

¢ Manny leaves the bad times behind as the Canadian teen drama “Degrassi: The Next Generation” (7 p.m., Noggin) enters a new season.

¢ A spirit helps save his despondent surviving fiancee on “Ghost Whisperer” (7 p.m., CBS).

¢ Relocated victims of Hurricane Katrina find help on a two-hour helping of “Three Wishes” (7 p.m., NBC).

¢ Vanessa learns to earn on “Bernie Mac” (7 p.m., Fox).

¢ Tom Cavanagh and Sarah Chalke star in the 2005 made-for-television movie “Alchemy” (7 p.m., Family).

¢ A renegade shipmate is suspected of murder on “Threshold” (8 p.m., CBS).

¢ A cracked code reveals evidence of a possible assassination on “Numb3rs” (9 p.m., CBS).

¢ “Movies That Shook the World” (9 p.m., AMC) looks at “The Graduate.” The 1967 comedy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, also airs at 7:45 p.m. on AMC.

¢ Scheduled on “20/20” (9 p.m., ABC): real estate tips and pitfalls.