Cougar Town.
Jules is 40-41, a successful real estate agent and divorced with a teenage son. Her best friends are her bitchy neighbour, Ellie, and her slutty lackey, Laurie. Jules’ cretinous ex-husband, Bobby, comes and goes as he pleases and there seems to be no enmity between them. Ellie’s husband, Andy, is the bitch in that relationship, and across the road is Grayson, who, in spite of his name, isn’t actually gay (but is sarcastic), but recently divorced as well, and who has has a constant stream of twentysomething hotties coming and going from his place even although he doesn’t really like them that much once the sex is over. Hands up if you haven’t already guessed that Jules and Grayson (sounds like a camp circus act) are meant to get together. Well, they do get together, and that’s how the series ends.
Can Courteney Cox get away with pretending to be 40-41? Not really. Is Christa Miller reprising her character from Scrubs? Yes, she is. Is that guitar riff in place of audience laughter somewhat annoying? Yes, it is. Does this show have any long term prospects? No, it shouldn’t.
What’s the audience demographic? Divorced, wine-swilling fortysomethings? The programme seems to have been conceived as a story about a divorced fortysomething who’s trying to be twentysomething again because she missed out on that decade after getting pregnant. That’s now the series seems to have started, but the whole idea that Jules might chase twentysomething boys seems to have been replaced by Jules the social linchpin, whose house is the constant centre of social activity and may as well be a wine bar.
Cougar Town needs to find its focus and decide what sort of audience it’s pursuing. I can’t imagine it appeals much to younger viewers even if that’s about the level of the humour, and it lacks the sophistication to appeal to the fortysomething market.
Advertisements
