By Dean Robbins

Laura Dern finds intermittent serenity

Laura Dern joins the list of brilliant actresses (Edie Falco, Laura Linney, Toni Collette) who have made cable TV an exciting place to be. Dern created and produced “Enlightened” (Monday, 8:30 p.m., HBO), a new drama about — sorry, there’s no other way to put this — life. She stars as Amy, a corporate executive who spectacularly loses it in the office after her affair with a married coworker goes bad. Amy has makeup-melting intensity, but also a thirst for serenity. That’s why she heads off to a Hawaiian retreat that teaches unhappy people to “Flow Through Your Rage.”

Amy returns home blissed out, flashing a beatific smile at her skeptical mother (Diane Ladd) and drug-using ex-husband (Luke Wilson). But clearly, the makeup-melting intensity hasn’t gone away. It’s bubbling beneath the placid surface as Amy desperately tries to get control of her life.

Amy is not terribly bright, not terribly perceptive about her problems. But her search for enlightenment can’t help but endear her to us. “You can walk out of hell into the light,” she says in meditation mode. “You can wake up to your inner self.”

I don’t think Amy’s going to wake up to her inner self anytime soon. But her hit-or-miss attempt to do so will keep me glued to “Enlightened.”

‘Free Agents’

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. (NBC)

Hank Azaria is renowned for creating many memorable characters on “The Simpsons,” from Apu to Moe to Chief Wiggum. So I’m surprised he has so much trouble creating a single memorable character on his new sitcom. Alex is a corporate public-relations guy, a divorced dad, and a sad sack. But Azaria plays him so blandly that he makes no impression at all.

“Dude, it’s official, you’re hopeless,” says a coworker, saving me the trouble of thinking up my own critique. CV