Pity the basic cable network.

It wants to be edgy. It wants its shows to be taken as seriously and buzzworthy as the big bad kids of premium cable. But it still needs to service advertisers and draw Nielsen numbers.

USA Network continues to move away from its comedy past (“Monk,” “Psych”) with two new dramas that arrive with all the markings of magnificent failures.

“Satisfaction” has the most provocative premise — until about halfway through when it doesn’t just go off the rails, it careens into the ocean, swims for England, sits for afternoon tea and then flings itself into the moon.

After almost 20 years of marriage, Neil (Matt Passmore, “The Glades”) and Grace Truman (Stephanie Szostak) share a gorgeous home but might as well be living in different states. He puts in 70-hour workweeks as a money manager but is questioning The Meaning of It All.

In what turns out to be a running gag in the approximately 90-minute pilot, every meltdown he suffers seems to propel him farther up the corporate ladder. He can’t even manage to get fired properly.

Neil accidentally discovers that his wife is a regular customer of escort Simon (Blair Redford, “Switched at Birth”).

So what does a cuckold do in a situation like this?

If you can’t beat him, steal his clients.

Quicker than you can queue up “Hung,” the 2009-2011 HBO gigolo comedy that starred Thomas Jane, Neil is meeting beautiful, lonely women and answering their prayers.

“Hung” at least in its own way was far more honest about the perils of being a male escort. Most guys would suffer more angst going to a new barber than Neil does here about his new vocation.

This so-called provocative take on a faltering marriage gives short shrift to Grace’s point-of-view. Though, of course, Neil isn’t the only member of the family who suffers a meltdown — teenage daughter Anika (Michelle DeShon) rebels hilariously at a school talent show.

“Rush,” too, aims for darkness but settles for dusk.

Dr. William P. Rush (Tom Ellis, “Merlin”) is the physician to Los Angeles’ rich and infamous, demanding cash up-front to treat all sorts of ailments and sins. He’s one trip away from rehab — he drinks too much, pops pills and does lines of coke.

Larenz Tate (“House of Lies”) has the thankless role of Rush’s best pal, Dr. Alex, a stable family man, seemingly the epitome of what Rush aspires to. Eve (Sarah Habel, “Underemployed”) serves as Rush’s personal assistant and the occasional prod to his conscience,

Ellis has one great, understated moment, when Sarah (Odette Annable, “Banshee”), the love of his life, confronts him about his failings, and you can see Rush realizes the gulf between the man he is and the man he’d like to be is a chasm he’ll never be able to breach. The show needs more of this.

But no, it backs away from the edge. If this were a premium cable show, Rush would walk his talk, take the cash from his miscreant clients and never look back.

But that’s the difference between even basic cable and premium cable shows: Protagonists still must be likable. In that, “Rush” brakes and trips over itself.