Friday, September 25, 2009
TBG TV: Cougar Town
When/Where: ABC – Wednesdays at 9:30 PM
10-Word Premise: Imagine "The Golden Girls" slightly sexier and 10 years younger.
Starring: Courtney Cox as the face of divorced middle-aged women everywhere – assuming all those divorced middle-aged women have had as much bad plastic surgery as Courtney Cox. Seriously, her mouth is like the unholy union of this grill and this grill; Brian Van Holt as the ex-husband who inexplicably landed her in the first place; Busy Phillips as the distraction in every scene because I can't take my eyes off her chocolate chip chest and Christa Miller as "Ethel Mertz" – cast solely to make the star of the show look hotter by comparison. Fine, you come up with a more timely reference.
The Best Thang: The 45-year-old Cox seems to be having the time of her life. Despite being the butt of most of the jokes, she kept chewing up scenery as the show rolled along – almost daring the writers to keep right on skewering her. Her conversationalist delivery of "crackalackin'" and "coochie-cooch" inspired me to use those words at least once a day for the rest of my life. And, her response to being caught in the act by her son had me rollin'. Put it this way: I've never seen an episode of "Friends", but if Cox brought this kind of comedic talent to that show, then I'm going to start listening when people begin a sentence with "Remember that time on "Friends"…".
The Worst Thang: WAY too many characters. After two viewings of the premiere, I've decided that Josh Hopkins' shallow, cradle-robbin' divorcé-hole (c'mon…that's brilliant – say it with the accent over the "e") is annoyingly redundant. Aaaaaand, sorry, Carolyn Hennesy. Your "Blanche Devereaux redux" schtick worked in the bar scene, but I've only got so many "Golden Girls" references in me for a weekly sitcom.
The Verdict: Someone told me that I listed "Cougar Town" as the one new show on Wednesdays that I would NOT watch. I…don't remember that. Besides, whatever I might've said – but, probably didn't – about it is forever buried in the TBG archives. This is a damn fine bit of self-effacing goodness, kids. Just keep your husband away from the camera and you'll ensure yourself a mid-level priority spot on my DVR, Ms. Cox. These are my terms. They are non-negotiable.
I had no interest in cougar town until I found out 1) the guy behind Scrubs, Spin City, and Clone High (Bill Lawrence, and Cam you should netflix clone high, definitely in your comedy wheel-house) was behind this and 2)Busy Phillips, my favorite semi-random celebrity crush who I refer to as a "non-union Mexican equivalent of Scarlett Johansson" was in it.
ReplyDeleteFriends is really good until Chandler and Monica get married. I don't jizz over it like a lot of people, but it's solid.
Nice to see some Golden Girls love. I used to be ashamed to admit I liked it until I realized that it boasted four of he best comedic actresses of the seventies and eighties and had Mitch Hurwitz (dude behind Arrested Development) as a guiding writer