CougarTown-related stories
Posted Oct 29th 2009 11:33AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Cougar Town
(S01E06) I've been trying to figure out why I'm not connecting with Courteney Cox and her
Cougar Town alter ego, Jules Cobb. It's not just about Cox overacting her role; if that were the case, I would have gotten tired of Monica Geller at around season five of
Friends. No, it was something else, something that I couldn't put my finger on.
But after enjoying the male side of the show more than the female side for the second week in a row, the reason has become clear: I might be the wrong gender. I'm neither getting nor caring about why Jules has so many issues with dating young'uns or the process she has to go through as a "woman of years" in order to do that.
What's ironic about that is that I had problems with the pilot because it felt like it was too frat-boy sounding. So maybe
I don't know what I want out of this show. It's not the first time that's happened.
Continue reading Review: Cougar Town - A Woman In Love (It's Not Me)
Posted Oct 28th 2009 5:01PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Sports, Industry, OpEd, Reality-Free
I have to admit that, when the Yankees are in the playoffs, most of my regular TV watching gets obliterated. Thankfully, DVRs and online TV sites (and, in the mid-'90s, VCRs) help me catch up. For instance, even though I have to review
Cougar Town, I'll likely won't watch it until tomorrow morning, on either ABC.com or Hulu. Why? World Series game one, of course. Nothing, not even the Yankees being behind 22-0, is going to tear me away from FOX at 9:30, when I should be watching
Cougar Town on ABC.
Which leads me to something that I've been wondering lately: Didn't networks used to program more reruns against the World Series? Tonight, NBC has a lineup of new episodes, as does ABC (except for
Charlie Brown in Hank's slot, for understandable reasons). Tomorrow, all three of FOX's competitors have new episodes.
Continue reading Remember when there were reruns against the World Series?
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 12:32PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Cougar Town
(S01E05) Much better.
Much better.
Those are the words that kept popping into my head as I watched this episode. Courteney Cox dialed it down a notch. The characters melded together a bit more. We explored the lives of the guys a little bit, seeing a side of each we haven't seen yet. And finally, the show wasn't about Jules Cobb pointing out how she's 40 all the time; it was more about how her experience comes out in her relationships with the young'uns, whether it's her boy toy Josh or her assistant Laurie.
And, it was funny. Especially when there was an apple involved.
Continue reading Review: Cougar Town - You Wreck Me
Posted Oct 8th 2009 9:42AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Cougar Town
(S01E03) Interesting trend with this show: The episode titles have so far been titles of Tom Petty songs. Take a look at the
names of the upcoming episodes and the pattern continues for the forseeable future. Wonder how long they can hold on to this convention, especially as linking the episode to a title of Petty song they haven't used before gets harder.
That's the best thing I can say about this episode, to be honest. This one was less funny than last week's episode, which was less funny than the pilot. At least last week's episode had some heartfelt emotion behind it, so the lack of laughs could be excused. But this episode didn't even have that, which made most of what was supposed to be funny fall flat.
Continue reading Cougar Town: Don't Do Me Like That
Posted Sep 30th 2009 10:01PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Cougar Town
(S01E02) I'll say this much about the second episode of
Cougar Town: It didn't make me laugh as much as the first did. But I feel a whole lot better about the show's future after seeing it.
Sometimes that happens, and it happens a lot with Bill Lawrence-led shows. Sometimes it's not wall-to-wall laughs, but the story is satisfying enough that you don't care. In this episode, we see some more humanity behind Jules and her quest to finally have a life even though she's in her forties... and we see the consequences of trying to pursue a life in your forties. We also got a little more out of Ellie than just the bitter wife we saw in the pilot. We also see the beginnings of a weird flirtation between Jules and Grayson that most people figured would happen from the first three minutes of the pilot.
Continue reading Cougar Town: Into the Great Wide Open
Posted Sep 29th 2009 1:02PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: TV on the Bigscreen, OpEd, Reality-Free
You know, ever since
Friends went off the air, rumors have cropped up again and again that there would be a big screen version of the show, presumably picking up the storylines from the grand finale. Of course, if you remember the great stories on
Joey, maybe post-
Friends storytelling isn't such a grand idea after all.
However, at least one person is sure that a feature film is coming. James Michael Tyler, who poured the coffee at Central Perk as Gunther (he also ogled Rachel), was asked about the movie version and
Tyler said that Friends: The Movie is definitely on.
Continue reading Friends feature film rumors begin again
Posted Sep 24th 2009 11:01AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Reality-Free, Cougar Town
Some of you may think that TV Squad is filled with cheerleaders, that we all love TV so much that we rarely pull out our swords and skewer a show. Well, this should change your mind. I tuned in to
Cougar Town last night and, I have to say, I was appalled. I thought I had seen what is likely the worst sitcom of the season --
Accidentally on Purpose -- but
Cougar Town has surpassed it in badness.
Let me preface the rest of this criticism by saying that I was a loyal viewer of
Friends. I liked Bruce Springsteen's video
Dancing in the Dark.
Scream was a hoot! I've been following Courteney Cox's career for years and I think she's terrific. She's funny and pretty and self-deprecating. I went into
Cougar Town with high hopes. In other words, I have good will for Courteney Cox, like Jenna Elfman.
Continue reading The women of Cougar Town are obsessed with sex
Posted Sep 23rd 2009 10:01PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Cougar Town
(S01E01) I have faith in
Bill Lawrence. I know that he's a guy who doesn't want to put out shows that are crap, and that if something he produces is crap (hello, sixth season of
Scrubs), he cops to it and vows to improve.
That being said, I really, really hope he has the time to work his magic on
Cougar Town. Because what I see from the pilot are the bones of a good show, but one that's going to need some time to develop.
I like the actors. I like the premise. There were a lot of funny lines. I even like the fact that Lawrence re-shot certain scenes to make them sound like they're from a more female point of view. But even in the pilot, you can see signs that this show can devolve into something more cartoonish than real, and right now it's a 50-50 shot that it'll do just that.
Continue reading Cougar Town: Pilot (series premiere)
Posted Sep 23rd 2009 11:04AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, Scrubs, Interviews, TCA Press Tour, Reality-Free, Cougar Town
Here's the full transcript from the phone interview I did with Bill Lawrence a couple of weeks ago... minus the part where we talked about
Scrubs. That's an interesting bit in and of itself, and I'll publish that in full sometime during the early part of October.
This goes on for about 5700 words, but if you hang in there, you'll find a lot of good conversation about
Cougar Town, the state of the sitcom, why Bill thinks NBC is shortsighted in its dependence on Jay Leno, and why Courteney Cox let him talk our ears off at the
Cougar Town TCA session.
You can either leave comments here or at the bottom of
the edited version.
Continue reading Bill Lawrence talks Cougar Town (full transcript)
Posted Sep 23rd 2009 11:04AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, Interviews, TCA Press Tour, Reality-Free, Cougar Town
A couple of weeks after I got
some Scrubs scoop from Bill Lawrence in Pasadena, I asked if we could talk by phone about his new show,
Cougar Town. The Courteney Cox-led show, which follows the travails of a forty-something Florida real estate agent and single mom as she tries to re-enter the dating world, starts tonight at 9 PM ET on ABC.
We talked a little more about
Scrubs (I'll print that in a few weeks), then about
Cougar Town. I opened with the fact that at the session he had for the show at the TCA press tour, he seemed to spend a lot of time defending the "noisy title" of the show.
The conversation ranged far and wide from that point, from what he thinks about the future of the multi-camera sitcom, why NBC's dependence on Jay Leno is shortsighted, why he's so outgoing to us press types, and why Courteney Cox let him talk everyone's ears off during the press tour session. You can read
the long but interesting full transcript if you're eager to find that stuff out. An edited version of the interview is after the jump.
Continue reading Bill Lawrence talks Cougar Town
Posted Sep 3rd 2009 12:04PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Programming, Reality-Free
The networks have had a quiet summer, quietly introducing scripted bomb after scripted bomb, so they're certainly ready to jump into the new fall season. And It looks to be an interesting one. ABC is scheduling a two-hour block of new comedies on Wednesdays as the sitcom tries to make a comeback.
Even more risky is NBC handing 10:00 to Jay Leno every night of the week. Everyone's waiting to see how that one plays out. FOX is banking on huge positive buzz for
Glee to make it a hit, while ABC is hoping
FlashForward can pick up where
Lost is leaving off when it wraps its run this season.
To help you with it all, TV Squad has put together a handy calendar of all the premieres so you can schedule responsibly in this busy time of TV watching. Some nights have as many as twelve premieres scheduled, so you might need to invest in a few more DVRs to catch all your favorites; Monday's still look grim. Bookmark this page and you'll have it handy to help see you through.
Continue reading TV Squad's complete 2009-10 fall season premiere calendar
Posted Aug 20th 2009 11:18AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, Scrubs, Interviews, TCA Press Tour, Reality-Free
On the last day of the TCA press tour, as the stars of ABC were yukking it up at a crowded party at the Langham Huntington in Pasadena, Bill Lawrence and I were out in the courtyard talking about what the new season of
Scrubs -- or as I'm calling it,
Scrubs 2.0 -- is going to look like.
Essentially, it's going to be like a medical version of
The Paper Chase, with Turk and Cox being the professors. We'll be following the lives of young medical students who will shuttle back and forth between classes and their rotations at the "new" Sacred Heart, which is being rebuilt on the med school's campus. While in the hospital, they'll run into a lot of the characters from
Scrubs 1.0, including J.D., as Zach Braff is scheduled to be in the first six episodes.
It all sounds a bit confusing, so I'll let Bill lay it out for you folks. An edited transcript is after the jump.
The full transcript can be found here. And I'll be getting on the phone with Bill to talk
Cougar Town sometime next week, so stay tuned. Oh, and at the end of the interview, we talk about the role Bill's wife, Christa Miller, had on
Scrubs that didn't involve any acting.
Continue reading Bill Lawrence: The TV Squad Interview (Scrubs 2.0 edition)
Posted Aug 20th 2009 11:18AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Scrubs, Interviews, TCA Press Tour, Reality-Free
Here's the full transcript of the interview I did with Bill Lawrence on the last day of the TCAs. It's goes into some of the financial nitty-gritty of the
Scrubs deal and drops a few other details. I also asked him to repeat what was going to go on in the new
Scrubs a few times, just so I could understand completely what was going on. Enjoy!
The main post, where you can leave your comments, is here.
Well let's start with the obvious. You've been thinking about doing another season of Scrubs for like a year now.(laughing)
Because you told me...when'd you talk to me about that? About a year ago?We're the only people who shot the shit about it. I thought there was a chance it would happene. I just saw the landscape, you know.
Continue reading Bill Lawrence: The TV Squad Interview (Scrubs 2.0 edition) - full transcript
Posted Jul 23rd 2009 12:03PM by Mike Moody
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, OpEd, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free
We all knew this was gonna happen.
Along with Matthew Perry, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer, Courteney Cox starred in one of the most popular ensemble TV comedies of all time. It's inevitable that at least one of her former
Friends co-stars will eventually show up on her new ABC comedy,
Cougar Town, for a guest spot. Even show creator Bill Lawrence knows that this is something the TV Gods demand.
"You and I both know that we'll do that eventually," Lawrence told
EW's Michael Ausiello about the possibility.
But don't expect to see any of Cox's old friends visiting
Cougar Town any time soon. ABC is set on selling the show's star and not potential guest actors this fall, Lawrence said.
Continue reading Which one of Courteney Cox's old Friends would you like to see on Cougar Town?
Posted Jul 13th 2009 12:05PM by Mike Moody
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, Programming, Pickups and Renewals, Upfronts, Reality-Free
ABC is banking big on comedy this fall, with a Wednesday night lineup featuring four new sitcoms starring some familiar faces. The network is also set to unveil more high-concept dramas, including
Flash Forward,
V,
The Forgotten and
Eastwick.
I caught the first act of the
Flash Forward pilot during the network's upfront presentation in May. It was good enough to become my most anticipated show of the upcoming fall season. My second most anticipated show is
V, the revamp of the '80 series/miniseries about an alien invasion. ABC hasn't released full screeners for
V or
Flash Forward yet, but we got advanced looks at some of the network's other new shows, including
Eastwick and
Cougar Town, the new comedy from
Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence. Look for previews of more new ABC shows here at TV Squad before the fall season kicks off in September.
Continue reading TV Squad previews ABC's new shows (Part 1)
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