Buena Vista | 552 Minutes | 2009 | NR
When Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence announced he had a new series in development, I couldn’t help but be intrigued. When he said, “The show came from not only hearing stories from single friends about what it means to be single and 40, but just the process of aging for a woman that is just so complicated and funny to me,” it was clear he and co-creator Kevin Biegel, ( also a Scrubs alumnus), weren’t looking to create a Scrubs clone. No matter, when I heard Friends star Courtney Cox was involved, I remained intrigued.
Cox plays 40-year-old Jules Cobb, a recently divorced single mom and real estate agent in the fictional coastal town of Gulfhaven, Florida. (Curious about becoming a real estate agent? Check out https://investfourmore.com/2013/11/20/much-money-real-estate-agents-make/ to get an idea what you are getting yourself into!) Jules Cob attempts to rejoin the dating game form the plot for the first few episodes and explain the title: “One time!” she exclaims after bedding a much younger man in the Pilot episode. “I did it one time and I’m already one of them?!” Thankfully, if you stick with it, Cougar Town morphs into a show about people trying to navigate their way through the often rocky world of dating. Aside from the dating issues, Cougar Town is also a show about the age old issues of family dynamics and friendship.
Jules recently divorced her husband Bobby (Brian Van Holt), who was a failure as a pro golfer, and now makes ends meet by giving at the local club and cutting the grass at their son’s high school. A classic underachiever, he now lives on a boat in a parking lot and his only means of transport is a golf cart. Though Jules is a real estate agent, one might say she’s a bit shallow. Obsessed with her looks, Jules id the kind of person who puts a piece of chocolate in her mouth for 15 seconds and spits it out; at 42, she keeps trying to come up with an age in her thirties she could pass for. Lots of middle age women will probably identify with Jules attempts to redefine herself after coming out of a marriage that resulted in a pregnancy at 19.
The double standard concerning dating is exemplified by Grayson Ellis (Josh Hopkins), a newly divorced, local bar owner, he happily dates a string of twenty-somethings and rubs Jules’ face in it. Of course, when she starts dating a sexy, young college student (Nick Zanoo) the reaction is totally different. While Grayson is a ‘stud,’ Jules is a ‘cougar’ which certainly has some less than pleasant connotations.
Some of the best comedic elements to be found on Cougar Town come from Bobby and his interactions with his old neighbor and friend Andy (Ian Gomez), a rather boring man who’s married to one of Jules’ best friends, Ellie (Christa Miller). The things Bobby gets Andy drawn into are usually classless and over-the–top funny. Of course, in real life you’d be hard-pressed to find a classy, attractive, and articulate woman who’s married to a guy straight out of a beer commercial, but in the world of sitcoms there’s only one rule: if it’s funny, it works. Trust me, Cougar Town offers plenty of laughs.
The other memorable character isJules’ real estate assistant Laurie (Busy Philipps), an energetic blonde in her late twenties loves sex with different men, and often needs Jules’ help when she awakens in a strange bed and doesn’t know where she is. Slightly ditzy, she offers to take the virginity of Jules’ 18-year-old son, Travis (Dan Byrd), as a “favor” to Jules, after the boy crushes on her when he sees her wearing a tight pink OhiO t-shirt (“I’ve never been to Ohio, but I like it because the Os go right on my boobs and it says ‘hi’ in the middle”). In all seriousness she tells Jules, “If I really like a dude I’ll stop texting while we do it.”
Thankfully, the series has been picked up for a second season. Since Cougar Town is smartly written and well acted, I feared the show might get the unwarranted ax, just like the gone to soon, Samantha Who? Cheers hoping Cougar Town gets a real chance to develop. Based on the first season, I would say this is one of those shows that could be hoisting Emmys next year, if handled correctly.
Cougar Town arrives on DVD with appropriate 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen transfers. Colors are wonderful – reds and blues really pop, without lending themselves to bleed or lack of definition. Black levels are also thorough from start to finish, and none of these discs manifest severe examples of compression artifacting. Detail isn’t particularly strong – there’s a bit of smear in certain sequences – but for the most part, these presentations are just fine.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound mixes get the job done. Dialogue is crisp and clear throughout, music cues don’t drown out everything around them and during certain outdoor scenes, we actually get some nice atmospherics in surround channels, offering a nice enveloping experience.
English SDH, Spanish and French subtitles are included.
The longest special feature is an under five-minute “Taming Cougar Town” making-of featurette about the show’s development. “Stroking it with Bobby Cobb” is around the same length, and the in-character schtick shows Bobby giving the kind of golfing tips that got him more action in bed than cash on the tour-broken up into four “lessons.” Other than that, there’s just a “Jimmy Kimmel Live Sketch” spoofing “Cougar Town,” “Ask Barb” Webisodes (13 of them), 15 deleted scenes that run under 10 minutes total, and a blooper reel. Also, a brief music video.
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