Don’t.

And if you have watched this train-wreck courtesy of FX, I feel your pain.

Its soul-crushing…in a “we’re in a recession but there’s money enough for these guys?” kind of way.

[Full disclosure: I only sat through the first 30 minutes of the hour-long pilot episode. While I'm the first to point a finger at the critic's uninformed opinion, I will stand by these words until the day this show is cancelled.]

[That day cannot come soon enough.]

The stilted, painful direction of this show is second only to the cast’s collective lack of talent.

Starring:

Katey Sagal: She might be trying the hardest here, you can tell she’s really gunning for that Emmy nod. And why shouldn’t she? She’s been in the business for a long time; my first Sagal experience was Married with Children. But after watching her hack her way through this slop, I realize her greatest asset (besides her gigantic boobs) is her voice. I don’t know what it says for an actress when her most memorable work is doing voiceovers on Futurama. Her attempt at, well, whatever it is she is attempting, is mesmerizingly dull.

Charlie Hunnam: The British freshman ‘heart-throb’ of the dorms in Judd Apatow’s outstanding and short-lived series Undeclared. I don’t think he’s been in much else and, though I am a fan of Undeclared, its not as if I ever thought, “Gosh, what’s that Charlie Hunnam going to achieve as an artist (besides looking like the poor man’s Heath Ledger)?”

Drea de Matteo: That chick from the Sopranos. Yeah, she’s great in the Sopranos (who isn’t) and I was tempted to not mention her as she appeared the least in the first half hour, but then the hospital visit came to mind. This is me referencing one of the moments in the show: when Charlie Hunnam, young top dawg of the motorcycle-riding-drug-and-gun-running gang Sons of Anarchy, visits ex-wife de Matteo in the hospital. See, she’s addicted to crank, and the rival drug dealer in town has been selling it to her on the sly. Why should Charlie care about his ex? Well, see, she’s pregnant with his son, see, that’s why. And she shot up and passed out and delivered the baby premature. And now their kid has half a stomach or something. And so he visits her in the hospital and oh how the tears did flow. It was like watching someone who studied acting at the Full House School of Drama. Like when Bob Saget would catch Mary Kate (or was it Ashley) doing something she thought was the right thing but he sternly, and with such heart, informs her that she was being selfish and the camera closes in on Mary Kate (or is it Ashley) and she is pouting and the audience farts out a collective “Awwww”. She’s that good.

BONUS! If you really want to see the finest lack of motivation between two people in a room ever, scripted or unscripted, then watch the scene with Hunnam and Sagal where Sagal just can’t stop cleaning. Ellen Burstyn, eat your heart out.

And those are the top dogs in this buttfield of mediocrity.

But the biggest kicker is this: Ron Perlman. Wha? Yeah. Ron Perlman plays the co-founder and current leader of Sons of Anarchy. And he’s great. I mean, I love Ron Perlman, I’m a Ron Perlman junkie. How can you not love Ron Perlman? He’s Ron Perlman. And I bet you’re waiting for me to tear him down, to roll over this dead dog…but I can’t. I mean, genuinely, Ron Perlman is great in this show. How can he not be? He’s Ron Perlman! And I had every intention of sticking through the whole pilot just to keep watching Ron Perlman’s work. But I just couldn’t do it. Not even Ron Perlman can make this show watchable. Though I highly recommend watching a scene, I think its in the first five or ten minutes of the episode, between Perlman and this one dude. They’re sitting on a park bench. You know, in a park. Now, for a moment, take Ron Perlman out of the equation, and this one dude, this one dude acting on this one park bench in this one park, this dude is the worst actor on the show; no easy feat. Now put Ron Perlman back on that bench and let him act with this one dude, and watch in amazement as this one dude’s acting prowess is savagely raped by Ron Perlman’s mere existence on that bench. (Its not that I think Ron Perlman is the greatest actor in the world, its simply that he’s Ron Perlman, and, in my book, Ron Perlman always wins.)

Someone has got to put a stop to this.