With Dave Chappelle signed on to do another two seasons of his show and “South Park” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” generating consistent praise and accolades, Comedy Central is past the point of taking risks. But if the network didn’t take risks, it wouldn’t consistently churn out fresh and edgy programs.

Keeping with the tradition of “The Upright Citizens Brigade” and “The Kids in the Hall,” Comedy Central will air the latest sketch comedy show to garner significant media attention, starting next Thursday. “The Hollow Men,” consisting of David Armand, Rupert Russell, Sam Spedding and Nick Tanner, is a group of Oxford- educated British comedians/thespians who have made a splash on this side of the pond.

More than just being the next big thing, these Brits have taken a completely unique path to stardom. Unlike British comedic acts before them, which established themselves in Europe before making an attempt at the United States, “The Hollow Men” had no name for itself in England.

Instead, they were discovered by an HBO talent agent in an English comedy club and were invited to the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival where they took home the Jury Award for best act. Comedy Central got wind of the group and a six-episode deal was born.

The show is an irreverent mix of timely jokes and off-the-wall comedy that confuses just as much as it entertains. The show includes skits ranging from a scene in which the Apollo astronauts are depicted as beer-chugging imposters to a running gag in which an appraiser takes a look at people instead of antiques.

Packed with skits laced with lewd sexual references and occasional potty humor, the show demonstrates the foursome’s unique eye for comedy.

Unfortunately, the show’s biggest strength is also one of its major pitfalls. “The Hollow Men” take a lot of what it does from “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” but the comedians aren’t as adept at creating their own world out of the sketches. In the end, the actors fail to establish themselves as comedic personalities and come off like their name: hollow.

The show’s best moments are the ones that deal with topical issues and stray from the “The Hollow Men’s” imaginary world. The show’s second episode begins with a short in which the foursome, dressed as typical American tailgaters, encourage a breast-feeding baby to chug as fast as possible.

In their funniest piece, Armand, Russell and Tanner are eating lunch and sipping from sodas emblazoned with the American flag. Armand shakes up his can in a childish attempt to spray soda but instead has his head disintegrated. The social commentary is subtle and well played, all that was left out was a fake slogan that said “Shake up America; it’ll blow your head off.”

In several skits, the characters’ abnormal actions are diluted because the jokes are so hard to find. The best example lies in the pilot’s end skit in which three identically-dressed men ask a shoe store clerk dirty questions involving small rodents. For most of the skit, the questions and answers seemed forced and the entire concept seems derived from a “How to Do Sketch Comedy” manual — that is, until the skit breaks into a choreographed song and dance that turns into a montage with all the characters from the show’s skits.

Overall, “The Hollow Men” should be praised for being able to do on its own terms what thousands of comedians dream of doing. If anything, the show strives to be different, which isn’t bad when that difference is made clear to the viewer. The sketches do show flashes of brilliance, but the group has a tendency to push jokes one punchline too far.

Who knows, with a little more experience in television, these young comedians could soon be mentioned in the same breath as Stewart, Chappelle, Parker and Stone. Either that or they’ll end up cancelled like “The Graham Norton Effect.”

“The Hollow Men” premieres March 10 and will air every Thursday night at 10:30 on Comedy Central.

This show received two and a half out of four stars.