Clever if shallow ‘Cougar’ charms an unintended audience

“Cougar Town” seems to pose one main question: what would Monica Bing, n´ee Geller, be like now if Chandler had divorced her and left her with an equally witty child?

Okay, not really. But Courtney Cox Arquette delivers yet again all the qualities her fans thirst for: a strong-minded, type-A personality with sharp line delivery and a deeply embedded sense of inadequacy she must overcome. Only this time, instead of suffering from the painful memory of childhood obesity, she has to deal with aging.

“Cougar Town” follows Jules (Cox Arquette), a responsible realtor and newly divorced mother of a teenage son, Travis (Dan Byrd). She tries to balance her wholesome side—going to high school football games with her son—with her side that longs to prowl, which brings her sexually-charged work friend Laurie (Busy Phillips) to said games. Catcalls and sexual objectification directed toward the boys on the team ensue. This does not bode well for anyone’s reputation.

And reputation is a big deal throughout the premiere. It comes into question not only when Jules frets over how she’ll be seen for pursuing younger men, but when Travis deals with rumors at school, and when Jules continuously bemoans the double standard for “cougars.”

The devil incarnate/Jules’ eventual love interest, Grayson (Josh Hopkins), is introduced to us under this premise. A fellow divorcé neighbor who takes pleasure in the ability to attract women half his age, Grayson encounters Jules multiple times in the pilot, creating much forced sexual tension.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it. There’s so much that screams no—from the opening credits that show unsightly fat-squeezing and wenis-pinching, to completely absurd dialogues to embarrassing “cougar” prowls. When the show attempts deep moments, they’re almost humorous, just because these characters are caricatures.

Yet it’s hard not to laugh at moments both clever (the football team’s mascot is a cougar) and completely foolish (when a boy asks Jules where she got her scar, and she goes into the details of her C-section).

With the exception of Grayson, all of the characters are fun and charismatic as an ensemble. And luckily, in a show about female sexual promiscuity, he doesn’t necessarily have to stay.

In this show there are enough treats to keep the intended demographic hungry for more. The appearance of beloved veterans Christa Miller from “Scrubs” and, of course, the protagonist herself, are a comfort to anyone looking for an hour of relaxation. And while it may not be directed toward our generation, the show still has a lot of the simple things we require: sex, raunchy humor, and of course, more sex.

“Cougar Town” may not bridge the gap between generations the same way that “Gilmore Girls” once did, but at least it reiterates a point that we sometimes forget: mothers are people too.