Meet Jules Cobb, a woman who chose a life of marriage and a child over the dating scene. Now in her early 40's and divorced, she muses about that road less traveled, and resolves in short order to experience what she missed out on so long ago.
She's assisted – and frustrated – by friend/co-worker Laurie, who encourages Jules to get out there and have fun; Jules' ex-husband Bobby and her son Travis, who test her patience in myriad ways, and Gray, a divorced neighbor, as old as Jules, who's skeptical that she can ever date again.
Posts: 4245 | Location: SE Pennsylvania | Registered: May 27, 2005
Didn't like it as much as I thought I would. The cast is great, but the writing needs to be sharper. Even though one of my faves were "Stop having sex w/babies!"
Posts: 5413 | Location: New York/California | Registered: September 30, 2006
A lot of promise here, but needs to fix a lot of problems very quickly:
- The directing and acting reeks of creative insecurity, playing every gag to a big shrieky comic crescendo where subtlety is needed. They're trying too hard to sell these jokes, and Courtney Cox is too good an actress to be so stridently high-pitched. She can be funny and have some dignity too.
- They need to ease up on the adult male characters. After 22 minutes, I already want the neighbor and the ex-husband written off the show.
- Christa Miller is stuck with too familiar a character: jaded housewife with an unattractive husband always hankering for sex. This sitcom-y convention is so old it's carbon-dated.
I think all the above problems would be solved by taking it down a notch -- maybe three notches. Less screaming, gesticulating, wailing, whining, and falling down. Let Cox really play this character instead of getting stuck in pathetic buffoonery. There's a moment where she pushes the neighbor to the ground and confesses how scary it is to be a fortysomething single woman. It was a great moment until it was undermined by more goofy craziness. Ease up. Chill out. Less is more.
Grade: C+
"A movie is not good because it arrives at conclusions you share, or bad because it does not. A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it: about the way it considers its subject matter, and about how its real subject may be quite different from the one it seems to provide." - Roger Ebert, from the introduction to "Awake in the Dark" (2006)
Hilarious. Loved the show, love Courteney Cox. I think the show is in good hands and I hope it finds an audience and has time to find its groove. I didnt think any of the cast was annoying or should be written out(eye roll lol). I think some characters are good-unlikeable people and I think the neighbor and ex husband fit into that category. Love-to-hate instead of ready to throw your tv out the window. FOund the jokes being played for big effect hilarious.
I hope this turns out to be a big hit for CC and can finally get her an award. Great start for a show I was really looking forward too.
Posts: 3716 | Location: USA | Registered: July 27, 2005
I want to like this show, and I'll stick with it for awhile, but this pilot tried way too hard with so much going on when they should have tried to focus on one or two threads and expound on them more. There's Courteney's character that anchors the show well, but then there was the assistant friend and her meddling, Christa Miller's needy best friend character and her schlubby husband, the slutty neighbor guy that she's going to end up with eventually, the loser ex-husband, the workplace introduction and the even-worse cougary lady, the bar-room pick-up guy (this could have happened later on), the put-upon son, the kid that was stealing the sexed-up posters, the school fight, etc. So much going on here, and much of it was reduced to tired sitcomy cliches that won't get the show far. Courteney Cox Arquette is very accessible as a lead though and looks stunning still, and any focus on her is welcome. The rest of the show needs some work or a pull on the brakes to breathe a bit. I'll chalk it up to the pilot episode needing to get all of this out of the way early on (even though they could have easily stretched some of these scenarios out for future episodes).
Grade for "Pilot": B/B-
"They made a porn movie about Sarah Palin, and the same actress, Lisa Ann, played me in the porn version of '30 Rock.' Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy."
~ Tina Fey
Posts: 24822 | Location: North Carolina, USA | Registered: April 11, 2005
I think I'm somewhere in between on the reviews so far. Yes, this show has a ton of promise. I laughed out loud several times...but yeah, my god, the pace at which these 22 minutes went at was a little jarring, and some moments hit the wrong note. Plus Cox got a little bit shrill in a few parts.
But yeah, this was very funny stuff. Cox is a great lead, and so far of the supporting cast, I really like Christa Miller. The show does need to tone down the zaniness a little bit, but even as the show's 22 minutes got going, it seemed to get better and better, and I really liked the final couple minutes showing the characters. But yeah, it was just overstuffed and went too hard for a laugh sometimes.
This actually reminded me a lot of the pilot of "Weeds".
B
Grammy FYC: Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak; Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D.; John Legend, Evolver; Paolo Nutini, Sunny Side Up; David Guetta, One Love; Kelly Clarkson, "Already Gone"; Jordin Sparks, "Battlefield"; Kings Of Leon, "Use Somebody"; Maxwell, "Pretty Wings"
Originally posted by GH: This actually reminded me a lot of the pilot of "Weeds".
That's great news then. To this day, I still think the pilot episode of "Weeds" is excellent. Had Parker been nominated that year and submitted the pilot, she would've easily won the Emmy. Not sure why the pilot episode wasn't nominated for writing and directing that year. It could've beat "My Name Is Earl" in both categories.
Cox is very good but the other charcters are really bad.
FYC Globe Voters: Steve Carrell (The 40 Year Old Virgin) For Lead Actor In A Comedy and The 40 Year Old Virgin For Best Comedy. Yeah I know, you laugh while watching this Comedy, but still put it on your ballot.
I really liked this show. Courtney was great, although yes at times she went too far into shrieky Moncia post season 7 territory, but that's a minor detail in an otherwise pretty excellent pilot. yes, the ex-husband is a bit one-note, but i like the neighbour character and think he has some potential. I like Christa Allen in this a lot, and Ian Gomez is great as always... but the real stand-outs for me were Busy Phillips and Carolyn Hennesy (the red headed realtor)... i thought the show has some potential. The mother/son relationship at the center of the show works and the show feels authentic in those scenes, it's the other stuff with her dating life that needs work and veers too far into kath and kim territory (a place nobody wants to go).
Praying The Daytime Emmys air on TV in 2010!
Posts: 20081 | Location: just outside Providence, Rhode Island | Registered: July 28, 2002
Eh, it was okay. In no way will Courteney be a threat to the Showtime ladies come awards season. However, a nomination is possible. That category always seems to make room for at least one ABC actress (the Desperate Housewives, America Ferrera, Christina Applegate) so she might be the one to fill that spot. But a win? No way.
--Morgan
2009 Primetime Emmys Congrats to Glenn Close, Toni Collette, Kristin Chenoweth, Jessica Lange and Shohreh Aghdashloo! Better luck next year Gabriel Byrne, Michael C. Hall, Kyra Sedgwick, Aaron Paul, Rose Byrne, Steve Carell, Jim Parsons, Mary-Louise Parker, NPH, Rainn Wilson and Elizabeth Perkins. BOOOOOOO to Jon Cryer. Worst. Win. Ever.
Posts: 2650 | Location: Arkansas State Univ Department of Theatre most of the time. | Registered: December 31, 2004
Pilot was okay. Writing was so-so, with a couple of really funny lines here & there.
Loved Courteney Cox. True, she still has a little bit of Monica in her, but that was expected. (Just like Kudrow's Phoebe-isms came out from time to time on "The Comeback".)
I really really hope that this is the show that finally lands Cox that Emmy nomination. She made me laugh during this one episode waaaay more than Toni Collette during USOT's entire season.
I agree that Christa Miller seems to be playing a Jordan-ish character again, but hey, it still works.
"You want me to make you a snack? That's what I do for my son's friends, I make them snacks." - LOL!
I liked the pilot very much. Yes it has flaws but come on! it's the pilot. I think it going to get better. I can see Cox nominated for Lead Actress at the Golden Globes and maybe a win at the Emmy's if the show gets the right direction which I think it will.
