TV: Cougar Town

“You have an outside perspective of the cul-de-sac crew. How do you see us?”

“Well, I see you guys as a bunch of old people with surprisingly good skin given the amount of wine and sun you take in.”

Realtor Jules Cobb (Cox) is ready to begin dating again after her divorce.  But it has been years since she has been on a date, her ex-husband Bobby (Van Holt) is still around, and her son Travis (Byrd) is a senior in high school.  She turns to her best friend and neighbor Ellie Torres (Miller), who has a successful marriage to Andy (Gomez).  She also seeks advice from her fun-loving employee Laurie Keller (Philipps).

She also befriends her divorced neighbor Grayson Ellis (Hopkins), who owns a bar.  Jules loves her friends and gets overly involved in their lives.  Her home is their hub, with everyone sitting around drinking wine in her kitchen and embarrassing Travis.


I loved Bill Lawrence's TV Show Scrubs, so even though I thought the title was ridiculous, I decided to give this show a try.  It took a few episodes, but it became a show I looked forward to watching.  During the first season the show grew and developed, leaving it's initial premise in the dust and embracing the group as whole.  The creators played with changing the name after the show changed, but ultimately decided to stick with it... and they used the opening title card to mock the show (beginning in season 2, each title card had a snarky comment about the title or the show as a whole).

Like Scrubs, the show also featured cameos by cast members from Lawrence's other shows (Scrubs and Spin City).  In fact, Sam Lloyd played his Scrubs character, Ted, on the show.  The show also featured cameos by Courteney Cox's Friends co-stars (Jennifer Aniston, Lisa Kudrow, and Matthew Perry).

The cast is fun and the characters are wacky.  There are running gags, such as Jules special wine glass (she goes through several, each larger than the previous, with it's own name), or changing the meaning of words.  They even invited a game called "Penny Can" with a unique set of rules that grow each season.

Overall, I enjoyed the show.  I liked most of the main cast and thought the stories played out well.  I was satisfied with the series finale (which didn't feel like a finale, until it did), except I was disappointed that Barb didn't get a cameo and the limited amount of Bobby (which was one of my issues with the 6th season).

I look forward to rewatching old episodes and falling in love with the show all over again.

Cougar Town (2009-2015)
Creator: Bill Lawrence & Kevin Biegel
Starring: Courteney Cox as Jules Cobb
Christa Miller as Ellie Torres
Busy Philipps as Laurie Keller
Dan Byrd as Travis Cobb
Josh Hopkins as Grayson Ellis
Ian Gomez as Andy Torres
Brian Van Holt as Bobby Cobb
Bob Clendenin as Tom
Carolyn Hennesy as Barb Colman