Comedy Central's newest sit-com is a slightly cliched, though well-intentioned, zany comedy. Not quite so much sit-com as character study, Halfway Home focuses on a group of ex-cons living in a halfway home and trying to put their lives together... well, maybe "trying" is a bit strong a word...

The best thing about it is that it's a completely integrated comedy, with characters from pretty much every ethnic background and general walk of life (excepting the fact that they're all convicts, of course) and since they're all ex-convicts, it actually makes sense. It gets really old seeing these shows in which the integration is so obviously forced and makes little sense. But shows like this one and Half and Half have the integration built in and it's a lot easier to take. And while race comes up fairly often, it's not as overt and offensive except in a subversive way.

And really, subversity (sp?) is the name of the game here. Halfway Home touches on all sorts of social issues concerning both life inside prisons as well as those getting out - and hits most of them on the head. But even though it tackles such issues intelligently, it doesn't smack the audience over the head with its messages. And really, it tends to focus on sex more often than not.

Again, not so much situational comedy as character-based, Halfway Home is decent fare once you've seen all the episodes of Arrested Development, airing opposite on G4.