Huh. The Middle. Is there a Malcolm in out there somewhere?
Actually, hold it right there. I was going to go into a big long comparison between this and Malcolm and the Middle, but then I realised this starred Patricia Heaton from Everybody Loves Raymond and Back To You, not Jane Kaczmarek from Malcolm in the Middle. So it all fell apart.
Putting that slight issue to one side, there are some obvious comparisons. We have a slight loser mom married to a regular type, loser dad (Neil Flynn from Scrubs). They have three kids. The youngest kid is a bit strange and looks very much like the youngest kid in Malcolm in the Middle. It's all about the chaos of family life…
You see? It would have worked so much better with Jane Kaczmarek. Why isn't she in this to make my life easier?
Actually, The Middle (a reference to Indiana, middle America and the middle class not child) is not quite the same as Malcolm in the Middle, even if the tone is the same. Here the focus is very much on the far more regular parents, doing their level best not to cock up in rearing their children - and the rest of their lives - and failing hopelessly, just as their children are.
How much you enjoy this will therefore depend on whether you have kids - and whether you feel like you're failing in life.
I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to this. How can I put it? There was something about the title - Cougar Town - that didn't seem very subtle or clever. Some might even suggest it sounded crass.
Equally importantly, it also stars Courtney Cox, never my favourite Friend and whose Dirt was a steaming lump of rubbish.
But I have a duty to y'all to watch all the new shows out there (and I'm trying to get through Brothers right now), just in case an unexpected classic pops up that everyone should know about.
This ain't one of those. But it is a lot better than I was expecting.
Cox plays a recently divorced 40-something who finds all the men her age who aren't gay or broken is some way are dating younger women. So what choice does she have but to join all the other older single women in town and date young men as well?
Okay, Cox is still irritating and the show borrows shamelessly from Sleepless in Seattle, The Sweetest Thing and Sex in the City. But the script's reasonably good, and it has Christa Miller playing more or less the same part she played in Scrubs. Which has to be a good thing, right?
Over the years, there have been surprisingly few shows set in the world of advertising. Given that it's a sexy, sexy industry, filled with volatile creatives, loads of money and gadzillions of product placement and sponsorship opportunities, you'd have thought it would have been a no-brainer, but apparently not. Bewitched and Mad Men and that's about it, really.
So, finally, at last, comes the show we've all been waiting for (?). Produced by former advertising execs and current producers of The Closer, Trust Me stars Eric McCormack (Will in Will and Grace, who recently had a brief sojourn on The Andromeda Strain), Tom Cavanagh (JD's brother on Scrubs and Eli's father on Eli Stone) and Monica Potter (Boston Legal and Martha in Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel & Laurence).
While the lack of class A drugs probably disqualifies it from being called a realistic portrayal of the advertising industry, in many ways it's a reasonably accurate look at the egos of the creatives in the boys' club that is the modern advertising industry, right down to the fact there's only one woman in it.
In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC In the UK: E4, some time this year probably
It has to be said that Scrubs hasn't been what it was for some time. Originally, a comedy show about doctors that also looked at the more human side of having to cope with people who are ill and dying, over its last few seasons, it's become something of a cartoon, in which reality has been shoved aside in favour of silliness and cartoon-like behaviour.
The strangeness of Scrubs is that it was an ABC Studios production for NBC, a network that didn't really seem to know what to do with the programme anyway, seeming at times almost to have forgotten the show existed.
But after NBC dropped it with a literal, medieval fanfare finale last season, ABC picked it up and has decided to run with it. Will the change in management help bring Scrubs back to its former glory for its probably final season, or like a giant oil tanker, will it prove impossible to turn back on course at this late stage?
About the blog
This is a UK media blog with daily news, views, exclusive reviews and good conversation. There's a bit of a bias towards the latest and greatest US TV, but we also cover British TV ranging from new Doctor Who to old Z Cars, Property Ladder to Big Brother, and BBC4 to S4C – yes, this blog is firmly part of the conspiracy to promote all things Welsh where possible, particularly Caerdydd.
Add in film, theatre, art, books, events and media journalism and you've (hopefully) got one of the best places on the web for media lovers. Oh yes, and there's The Carusometer, the ultimate guide to quality TV.
About me
I'm Rob Buckley, a freelance journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of. I've edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for trade magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and contributed sarcastic articles about television to the blink-and-you-missed-it "web site for urban hedonists" The Tribe. I'm freelance now and have contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly and TV Scoop. Have pity on me.
Read more on What did you watch on TV last week (w/e March 14)