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Cougar Town: The Complete First Season

By Hervé St-Louis
August 24, 2010 - 23:37

Friends alumni Courtney Cox stars as Jules, a recent divorce and mother of an older teenboy who’s back on the dating scene. While the series’ original premise is that of a foxy cougar hunting younger males, it soon morphs into a sitcom with a strong support cast where the eclectic gang of the cul de sac enjoys each other’s company while Jules focuses her sight on men her own age instead.

I had never heard of this television series before. I don’t watch much television. Considering how original sitcoms are rare these days and have mostly been replaced by reality television series, it was fun to kick back and watch a good old 30 minutes of fun that did not involved feeling shame for the contestant on the screen. The premise of Cougar Town had me fearing the worse. A show like Sex in the City which I’m proud to say I have never watched.

Instead of the chick-friendly sitcom, we get a light hearted series aimed at a broader audience that focuses on the common live of people and their hardships. I kept thinking that everything would be sanitized as this is a series produced in part by Disney. But no. The jokes continued to fly and the consumption of red wine on screen remained and was even spoofed in one episode.

After the first few episodes, the cougar angle was totally washed away replaced with the presence of the strong cast around Jules. It’s  a formula that works better. As a cougar and aging woman, Jules does not convince of course, as she’s a very beautiful woman that would have hardly any problem finding a boyfriend. That was reflected somehow in the plots of the series.  Jules’ reality and age is not the plight of every woman in their forties. She’s pretty lucky.

At moment, I did find the large cast of supporting characters which includes neighbours, potential love interests, the ex, best friends and son to be too much to handle. The formula used by the creators of the series is the large ensemble, similar to Friends where many personalities face off against each other and have their own subplots and motivations. It provides a good mix for potential stories but does highlight that Cox cannot carry this series on her own. She’s actually more human and more fun than in Friends, where she was mostly the straightwoman to whoever was being an idiot during the episode.

Here Cox is allowed to be a goof and that helps a lot to make her less frigid and warmer. I thought that the tension with the neighbour next door would become one of the main dynamic of the entire series. It didn’t. The potential lovers broke well near the end, and it wasn’t a fairy tale. What the writers do was milk every situation for a potential story as much as they could.  That made for self-aware characters that knew what they were going through – a bit like after-school special. It also made for some predictable laughs.

About the laughs, they are not the best in the business. I’ve laughed more at other series, although I really did enjoy myself after all. Now if ABC can figure out how to sell this series to a broader audience and get out of the female cougar angle, this series may get a better audience. It won me over although I was afraid of watching a chick sitcom.

The extras are quite decent. They even include snippets with Barb, the resident de facto cougar on the series whose existence has not been explained yet.

Bonus Features:
DVD Exclusives
• Bloopers
• Deleted Scenes
• Taming Cougar Town – Discover How Cougar Town Has Evolved From Its Initial Comedy Pilot Into
Today’s More Subtly Sexy ABC Hit
• ‘Ask Barb’ series
 
* *Best Actress in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy (2010)

DVD non-Exclusives
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: Saber-Tooth Tiger Town 
• Ask Barb – The Ultimate Cougar Answers Your Questions
• ‘Stroking it with Bobby Cobb’ series

Rating: 8 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12