Cougar Town Season 1 (2009-2010)

 

Created by Kevin Biegel and Bill Lawrence

Cast: Courteney Cox as Jules Cobb; Christa Miller as Ellie Torres; Busy Philipps as Laurie; Dan Byrd as Travis Cobb; Josh Hopkins as Grayson Ellis; Ian Gomez as Andy Torres; Brian Van Holt as Bobby Cobb

Ephemeral Waves

 

What led to me even watching this show? Pure chance, and since I had the first season at hand, I felt a curiosity to delve into this, the least expected review as this a very mainstream non-abstract production, a sitcom co-created by Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs, starring Friends alumni Courteney Cox as a single mother in her forties struggling with single romantic life. This is, again, alien to what I usually watch even as someone who grew up with Bill Lawrence, but this is a fascinating thing to attempt to review, forcing me into different pastures in terms of entertainment. This show also has, in its main cast, alumni from John from Cincinnati(2007) and Clone High (2002), very unconventional one season shows which emphases how for many stars of strange and abstract work, they are merely part of their regular day jobs alongside shows like this. Think of this review as the mirror reflecting back at their regular day jobs.

Sold, for the British DVD, on the double meaning of "Cougar" - set in Florida, where cougars are found, and the euphemism for very sexually open older women who date younger men - that title did eventually become a joke, to the point it was considered to be changed¹ and was even mocked. After the initial story of Jules, a recently divorced mother of one who decides to throw herself into the life of a bachelorette hard, including to date a man half her age, the show becomes more openly about a group of friends around her, setting up a template of normalcy being kept baring a season long set of character plots.  

Covering a show like this is perversely idiosyncratic for someone who covers unconventional cinema, especially as this is a modern sitcom, structurally where, rather than the live audience (or canned) laughter, this is a regular comedic show set in the fictional town of Gulfhaven, with a few sets focused on². It is still felt to have some budget for more elaborate events, and at least one real alligator wrangled in one scene for a gag of one wandering into Jules' back garden by the pool, but is still restricted in a limited world baring that of the cast themselves. This cast is Jules and those in her orbit.

Her best friend and neighbour Ellie, played by , the wife of co-creator Bill Lawrence and the voice of Cleopatra in Clone High, playing a misanthropic stay-at-home mother who delights in gossip and teasing people, her husband Andy (Ian Gomez)  a lovable and doting figure is the complete opposite to her but means, whilst eccentric, their relationship is clearly with love. Laurie (Busy Philipps), Jules' assistant at her real estate business who is her other friend, a younger woman brazen in her habit of flirting with men, drinking and terrible choices in boyfriends. Jules' ex-husband Bobby, played by Brian Van Holt of John from Cincinnati, a lovable boob of a man who spends the series living in a boat in a parking lot, and their adult son Travis (Dan Byrd), always awkwardly stepping in when his mother or someone is having a frank sex conversation or if she says something weird. And Jules' neighbour Grayson (Josh Hopkins), seemingly the chad as he has women half his age always at his place at night just for sex, but with chemistry with Jules that becomes a huge plot point over the first season.

Taking Season One by itself, over twenty four episodes around twenty minutes each, you see a show (produced for ABC originally) trying to be naughtier knowing they cannot have any real nudity or even cursing as a broadcast show. It stumbles into a few jokes which has not aged well, actually tasteless nowadays, and sometimes you realise when this show was made as they make pop culture references like about the band Vampire Weekend. It does, in spite of its frankness about sex, reach a glass ceiling, and it is oddly naive and awkward when occasionally bringing up certain topics, such as anyone being gay, which is a shame considering this also has, in Andy and Bobby, a pure bromance despite them both being heterosexual, with celebration dances and butt slapping completely comfortable for both.

But for all those times which can be an issue, or how it became conventional or syrupy, as a show set in a well off middle class white community, it suddenly could make me laugh quite a few times per episode. It is not a show set in reality, a broad and exaggerated world when the behaviour is at times random and strange, succeeding and bolstered not because of its huge star Courteney Cox in truth but by the rest of the cast. Whilst she is central, as an executive producer and the star the main narratives hang around, Cox is merely the tent pole for her own show, and the only time it ever refers back to Friends is a one episode guest star in Lisa Kudrow, playing completely against her Friends character as a ball busting older dermatologist. In contrast, more is probably made of musician Sheryl Crow, in more than one episode, as a possible love interest for Grayson, adding another connection to my usual unconventional reviews as she had a very early role, before she was famous, in Cop Rock(1990).

The entirety of Cougar Town for me, in terms of entertainment, was whenever the scripts were openly silly and due to the rest of the main cast. This helps as some of the Jules main stories actually do paint the cast in a negative light. Jules being told to dump her significantly younger boyfriend in the first few episodes, just because, is actually unlikable, and everyone trying to get her back to drinking later on in the season is as bad when you take a step back from that episode too. Better instead is keeping her an absurd character, in the affluence middle class world that can afford a swimming pool in the back garden, which is still likable but also odd, in one episode loving her new bathroom, with a couch, so much she refuses to leave the room. Instead, it is that Ellie is such a misanthropic you strangely like, or Laurie is a bubbly and bright figure, which won me over, or that eventually the group of Andy, Bobby and Grayson become a fun trio of older men. The show to its credit is a case where the female cast are allowed to be diverse and interesting, but the men are also interesting; it is something far more positive, than crass machismo, about a bunch of middle age guys who do stupid things but also have a lot more responsibility on their shoulders, their type of bro behaviour more staying up all night in their boxers and cowboy hats, drinking or dancing to Enya, than anything remotely dubious. Particularly as well as, with that example leading them into Ellie's bedroom, when she is trying to sleep only for her to join in the drinking, no one in the stick in the mud or a butt of jokes, just willing to all hang out, abruptly appear in each others' home or drinking a lot of wine.

It produces a dichotomy, which is for the better in enjoying the show, that in the midst of many conventional stereotypes, there are thankfully many lovably eccentric characters that get to indulge in scenes silly for the sake of it. A man-on-man stare down where the loser, listening to a song meant to make men cry, weeps. A game of "penny can", a game invented by Bobby I am aware is going to be a running gag over seasons, which includes guessing trivia on him to lead the loser to telling him Jules is dating Grayson, including the fact he would flirt with an Ewok if one was put in a dress. A running gag over two episodes over a red balloon, not one from a French children's short film but from a car dealership promotion day which leads to prize money if caught, or the ultimate taboo being if you acquire your cooking meat from a petting zoo. The fact that everyone, even Ellie and Laurie, really like each other even if, in one case between Ellie and Grayson, you put up an entire set of Christmas decorations out of season just to torment the other.

Production wise, I have found television can significantly be restricted in pushing its visual and technical side, due to their schedules and their formats, here an example. This is bright and colourful, with many rooms looking like they are from the world of glamorous furniture catalogues, but the one real moment of artistry I can think of in the whole season, when Jules wishes to have a night out boozing, is when the episode stage all the events that transpire in photographs, which is beautifully executed and beautifully mirrored by the men's night out, done the same way, set to Thin Lizzy's The Boys Are Back In Town. This production style, to be honest, is one I except even if I am the type of person who prefers more creative productions regardless of budget. The one exception, since I have brought up music, which I wish would removed in future seasons is the musical choices, as there are a lot of montages of characters pondering their regrets set to post-post-grunge rock I could have lived without.

There is after this the question of where Cougar Town will go. Season One is light-hearted and each episode breezes past quickly with only Jules and Grayson's relationship the main dynamic. One of the factors which has scared me off shows with many seasons is that it is a long commitment to make (Cougar Town having six) and that there is a danger, mid-way through, you could have both a gradual decline, or even a rot set it, when the premise is lost, or you find yourself not really interested in the series at all, where people would sensibly quit after that point. Many series, unless they are cancelled only after one, tend to change and find their personality more onwards, so I could see Cougar Town evolve over the next season. One additional factor, which is inexplicable, is that we never got the fifth and final seasons in the United Kingdom, which is a curious hurdle, but that is for another time. Whilst it may be weird to cover this show when I should be covering avant-garde and psychotronic productions, there is a perverse glee to see this through and at least see what would happen over said seasons.

 

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1) As mentioned in the article HERE

2) The pub Grayson owns and works at is perfect for pondering the reoccurring sets in sitcoms, watching the solitary female extra in their red and white bar staff uniforms walking behind the leads in the background in every scene. Contemplating the staging, even contemplating whether they could afford more elaborate background extras or whether, even with Friends a decade before this, they have to work under a budget.