ABC Comedy: The Good and the Meh

ABC's struggled with comedy since Spin City went off the air, but this year it's making a comeback with its entire Wednesday night line-up devoted to comedy. While Hank and The Middle won't premiere til this week (and I have no desire to see them anyway), I did catch the Friday re-airings of Modern Family and Cougar Town. So does ABC have the next great sitcom on its hands? Let's take a look.

Grade: A-

Modern Family has been called "the next Arrested Development," which left me both intrigued and worried. I didn't want to watch some rip-off of my favorite show. Thankfully, it only resembles Arrested Development in 2 ways: it's about a dysfunctional family, and it's hilarious.

More so than drama even, I find comedy to be more about execution than ideas. Because on paper, Modern Family seems to be full of all the same family comedy cliches we've rejected since the laugh track went out of fashion (don't worry, there's no laugh track here). A dorky dad trying to seem hip in front of his kids? The mom worried about her teenage daughter around boys? Sounds like a TBS sitcom.

Yet whether through cast or writing, Modern Family takes what we know of the family sitcom and makes it funny and new again. The show centers on three different families who by the end of the pilot we know to all be related. First, there's the traditional family with parents (Lost's Julie Bowen plays the mom) and three kids. Second is an older guy (Married with Children's Ed O'Neil) with a much younger Colombian wife and her son. And lastly, a gay couple that have just adopted a baby from Vietnam.

While the show does go for the mockumentary format that so many single-camera comedies do these days, it's not as big a part of the show as it was on The Office or Arrested Development. On the other hand, it never feels too sitcommy either (cough Community cough), even with such over-the-top gags as the gay couple making a speech on an airplane over a misunderstanding or various mishaps involving a BB gun.

Mostly though, the show's just funny. So far the traditional family's gotten the best material, being responsible for the above mentioned BB gun which led to some of the episode's funniest moments. With so many comedies satisfied with a couple laughs and some "awww"s, it's good to have a show that wants to keep you laughing throughout. So I don't need a 3 episode trial period here; this one's a keeper. If only I didn't already have 2 shows on Wednesdays at 9. That's why there's Hulu.

Grade: C+

Cougar Town probably isn't helped by its lead-in. Ratings-wise maybe, but it's not flattering to air the funnier show first. In all fairness though, it was actually better than I was expecting after all those unfortunate promos highlighting the show's least appealing moments. But even with a cast full of people I like (Courtney Cox, Freaks and Geeks' Busy Phillipps, Scrubs/Drew Carey's Christa Miller, and Dan Byrd from Aliens in America), this one's just not for me.

Most of the attention the show has received has followed the thread of "oh boo hoo, so hard for gorgeous Courtney Cox who's somehow still successful in real estate to find a man." But despite all the many speeches about how hard it is for 40-something women (even if they're Courtney Cox and look about 10 years younger), I'd say her problem is less her looks than her behavior. Her onscreen son puts it best: she says everything she thinks. Which after about 5 minutes gets really, really annoying.

And despite the fact that it was created by a man (Scrubs' Bill Lawrence, hence my interest), the show doesn't make much of an effort to attract male audiences. Lines like "I let my coochie cooch do the thinking" and "my uterus nearly flew out" just aren't what a guy wants to be hearing on a weekly basis. All of which makes the show fit in nicely with the network behind Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, and Desperate Housewives, but doesn't make it something for me. Final verdict: manproof.