★★★★★ 0/5

Cougar Town

The hunt is on for love, sex and comedy schtick as Courtney Cox returns as a rather desperate housewife on the prowl in Florida.

13
Leave a comment

If we were to drop in on Monica Geller ten years after her life on Friends, would we find her living in a suburban cul de sac in the state of Florida? Very possibly.

At least that’s what it feels like on Cougar Town. Here is Courteney Cox, still doing schtick, slapstick and sexy, only this time with a teenage son and an ex-husband. The thing is, Cox does this sort of thing very, very well.

Real estate saleswoman Jules Cobb (Cox) spends most of her Friday night with scrabble, wine and her best friend, neighbour Ellie Torres (Christa Miller). Everyone else seems to be either married or dating. The single men are either “broken, gay or chasing younger girls.” Even Grayson (Josh Thomas) the divorced guy living across the street is getting skirt at least half his age.

So it takes her 20-something colleague Laurie (Busy Phillips) to push Jules back onto the dating scene. And yes, it’s a jungle out there. Despite her still-foxy looks, she barely copes with the art of negotiation anymore. It’s only when a tipsy Laurie drops a young hunk on her doorstep that she is forced to let down her guard. Or her hair. Or both.

That Jules can still be found attractive invigorates her.

Filling out this comedy are her flaky ex-husband Andy (Ian Gomez) and 17 year old son Travis (Dan Byrd). As a comic subplot, Travis spends much of the time being embarrassed by the antics of his haphazard mom and golf-kart driving dad. Their generation gap isn’t quite as cataclysmic as Ab Fab‘s Eddie and Saffy, but it provides some useful contrast.

Cox slips into this role with ease. Jules is a more knockabout role than that of her Dirt editor Lucy Spiller, but it comes with less depth. At times you could swear both she and the series have been split from the same atom as Teri Hatcher’s and Desperate Housewives. Heck, she even picks up the newspaper from the front lawn just so she can chat to the dishy neighbour across the road.

Scrubs‘ Bill Lawrence, who co-wrote the piece with Kevin Biegel (did any women actually write this very femme view of the world?), knows when to inject the punchlines in this single-cam series. Character comedy is complemented by visual humour. It has also tapped into the emerging, liberated world of “the cougar,” given to define a 40 something woman who celebrates her sexuality with younger men. In a post Sex and the City-world, there’s bound to be at least 3 or 4 years of “cougars” being as a buzz word before it grows stale.

It was a little hard to believe Jules could look so fantastic for her age and yet still be perenially dateless on a Friday night. Would it add more layers if she were cast by a less aesthetic actress?

Despite its classification, this rather broad series isn’t particularly risque, and it isn’t at all profound. But watching Courtney Cox back on screen doing what she does best is still a pretty good way to while away 30 minutes.

Cougar Town airs 8:30pm Thursday on Seven.

13 Responses

  1. I’m really surprised at your seemingly positive review of this trite. If I was a women, I would take offense at the content of this humorless hodge podge of a “comedy”. Morally bankrupt, surgically enhanced 40 year old women trying to sex any young thing they find is not entertaining. It’s humiliating and dare I say it, embarrassing for the once bright and funny Cox.

    Cougars of this nature should not be celebrated. Rather, they should be derided for pulling women-kind back 50 years. Booo!

    The channel 7 boss got it right when he said this was s**t.

  2. I can’t see the funny side of 40 somethings acting as stupid as schoolgirls and making every younger bloke look as thick as a brick.
    There would only be one reason a younger guy would go out with someone as old as that and that would be for a quickie, with no thought of a relationship, until someone his own age and attractive turns up.
    There is only one of the actresses slightly attractive anyway. The other two featured wouldn’t get a glance by a younger bloke.
    The “comedy” is about on the level of Paris Hilton.

  3. Disappointed to see that it is only a half hour show = maybe 20 mins of actual show. After all the hype, it doesn’t seem to warrant much more than a quick look to see what all the fuss is about. Half hour shows at 8.30 usually muck up viewing for the whole hour!

  4. I’ll be tuning in for sure. And David I did like your very tactful description of a ‘Couger’ being a “40 something woman who celebrates her sexuality with younger men.” Whilst out at the pub I have heard it put much more bluntly 😉

  6. I find this to be a funny show, except the last few have been less great. Christa Miller’s character is pretty much the same as her character from Scrubs which bugged me at first. She is great in both roles, but it was hard to separate them.
    I would not go by Channel 7’s promos to make a view on this show. The promo’s are shockingly bad and over played, and I would not have watched it based on them.

  7. This series is seriously fantastic, and to all the cynics – I beg you to give it at least 5 or 6 episodes. Not because it takes that long for Cougar Town to get into gear, but moreso to break the stereotype of the show being solely about 40 year olds trying to date younger men. This is a false assumption most missers are citing. It’s more of a “dysfunctional neighbourhood” styled sitcom with depth.

    The character of Jules represents self-conscious middle-aged women who are finding ways to still be in love with themselves, as well as being lusted for, for that matter.

  8. I love Cougar Town, and I honestly believe in the character of Jules Cobb because she got pregnant at 20, and had to play second fiddle to her husband while he travelled around on golf tours. She knows she’s hot, there’s no doubt there, but as the others remind her in later episodes, she spent 20 years worrying about looking after everyone else to the point where she forgot to look after herself. The reason why she’s not out dating already is it has only been 9 months since her divorce and she’s pushed into it by Laurie who sees what a fox she is (or cougar even!)

    I also think Courtney Cox does a great job with her character, because it allows the more outrageous characters of Laurie and Bobby to stand out more. The banter between Ellie and Jules is enough for me, the rest is a bonus.

  9. I saw the sneak previews for this show. I can see the jokes but I didn’t find them funny. I will watch the show to see what it is like as it is possible that once the characters are established, it might be interesting but I wasn’t impressed by the ads and the previews.

  10. I enjoy Cougar Town a lot more than I thought I would, and a lot more than I know I would if my first encounter with it was to be subjected to Seven’s awful promos that make the show look shrill and unfunny.

  12. I like the show, it’s not the best sitcom of the season (I think Modern Family and The Middle are better) but it’s good and worth it just to see Christa Miller and Courteney Cox on the screen together.

    BTW her TV son, Dan Byrd used to be on the short lived Aliens in America, which only recently aired on GO!

  13. Cougar Town is hit and miss for me. I love Courtney Cox and think she’s an excellent comedian, but she’s miscast in the role. She’s effective, but it could be much, much funnier.

    When I think cougar, I think a Jennifer Coolidge type – someone who reads slightly tragic, yet is warm and likable.

    Watching Courtney, I have to strain to imagine she would lack self confidence or find it hard to get a date. So sadly, I think this is an example of a big star having the gravitas to pull a show that is a better vehicle for someone else.

Leave a Reply