It remains to be seen how long a leash NBC plans to give Andy Richter’s latest foray into prime time. My guess is, not very long at all.

All six episodes of Andy Barker, P.I. (photo NBC.com) have been available for free online weeks ahead of Thursday’s series premiere. And one of those episodes is a Web-only offering that will never see the light of network TV. Oh, and NBC has already pulled a Scrubs on Barker by shuffling its timeslot around. (It’s set for Thursdays at 9:30 p.m., for now.)

So, no, I won’t be shocked if this show has a shorter lifespan than Coupling. But even if NBC won’t give it a decent shot, I plan to.

Warning: Nothing but spoilers follow…

Accidental private eye Andy Barker is your everyman, an unassuming family man without much excitement in his life. His new office is in a typical suburban strip mall, and business is painfully slow.

Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development and the best reason to give this show a shot besides Conan O’Brien’s exec-producing credit) plays Simon, the owner of Video Riot a floor below Andy’s storefront. Wally (Marshall Manesh) is an Afghani-American who came to the U.S. in the wheel well of a jumbo jet and now owns a Kebab place where he’s been overdoing the patriotic theme ever since 9/11.

After two days in business, and despite an ad on Spanish-language radio, Andy still has no customers. That is, until a Russian bombshell named Nadia walks in and asks him to help find her husband, who may or may not be dead. Seems she’s confused Andy with the retired P.I. who rented his space before him. In true sit-com style, he’s unable to dispel the misconception, but she’s paying cash so he runs with it.

Simon might be the world’s worst video store clerk, but he’s not totally inept. His encyclopedic movie knowledge comes in handy when he accurately sizes up the Nadia as a phony because based on the plot of Chinatown.

Seems Andy might have a knack for investigating himself, and his accounting knowledge could be an asset. He decides to check out Nadia’s story online, but Google takes him only so far. So he heads to the morgue of the local newspaper, where the records clerk (and soon-to-be Andy’s assistant played by Nicole Randall Johnson) nearly steals the show.

Andy: Hi, I called earlier about a tax return that’s on file here for a Nikolai Kerensky.
Clerk: Sir, I get four, sometimes five calls a day. I can’t be expected to keep track of every single one.
Andy: Isn’t that it right there?
Clerk: Could be. I’d have to check. (not checking). Yeah, that’s it.

So Andy steals the records by setting up a little old lady as a shoplifter. And he’s able to deduce quite a bit from them. But it seems he might be a little too naïve for this kind of work. Tracking down a sizeable donation Kerensky made to a local church, he runs right into the guy, who’d been hiding out there from the Russian mob. That’s exactly what the mobsters were hoping when they tailed Andy there.

So Andy gets bopped on the head, and the Russians grab Kerensky. Andy’s doting wife Jenny, perfectly cast by Clea Lewis, is none too happy with his moonlighting.

Jenny: Might I remind you that you are an accountant, who has a meeting tomorrow with Ron Davies.
Andy: I know. It’s just figuring the whole thing out, finding Nikolai, I enjoyed it. It’s a rush.
Jenny: Andy, are you doing pot?

Andy promises her he’ll go to the police, but first he tracks down Lew Staziak (Harve Presnell), the P.I. Nadia was looking for, at a nursing home. Staziak explains the stakes to Andy. He’s got 12 hours before Kerensky’s dead.

So Andy turns to his new friends. Wally’s security cameras (mounted on busts of Lincoln and Nixon, of course) help him identify the bad guys’ van. And Simon joins him on the stakeout.

Not having much experience (or subtlety), Andy confronts the thugs. Under pressure, he displays a kind of charming naivete, like when one of the thugs fires a warning shot.

Andy: OK, that was pretty scary, and a little bit rude. So to make it up to us why don’t you just let Mr. Kerensky go?
Nadia: Oh, and we went to so much trouble to find him.
Andy: You, boy do I have a bone to pick with you. You lied to me. And I’m no expert on your particular business model, but do you even own this warehouse?
Nadia: Beat them to death.

Thankfully, Simon’s hand-made Sandra Bullock action figure with voice-recording feature saves the day. (Of course it does.) Andy, Simon and Kerensky make an improbable run for it. (OK, everything that’s happened to this point has been improbable.) Andy gets away by tossing a baby seat from the window of his Saturn. But he remembers his promise to Jenny, and picks up his appointment and takes him along.

It’s impossible to recount a slapstick car-chase, but let’s just say Andy’s not one to put tax advising on hold during a high-speed pursuit. And he’s pretty good at both.

At this point in real life, the Russians would find out where he lives and blow up his house. In sit-com land, that’s a happy ending. Cut to Andy’s doorstep, where Staziak is recruiting him for another case.

 

Staziak: What do you say, Barker? Are you in or are you out?
Andy: Where would I find this Ranjid guy? (Staziak gestures to the guy getting chased down the street). Oh, I had hot links I was going to grill!

Well, there you have it. Mastepiece Theatre, this ain’t. It’s probably not even on an intellectual par with 30 Rock or The Simpsons. But Richter and O’Brien manage to pack a lot of laughs into 22 minutes or so.

And that’s at least got to be worth hanging on for five more episodes, no?