I have to do it. I have to start a thread for ABC's Modern Family/The Middle/Cougar Town Lineup

lol @ this on cougar town wiki entry:

Even though she has been out of the dating world for a while, Jules decides to find love again while living with her teenage son.[10][clarification needed]

they took cougar town away last night to make room for premiere of mr. sunshine. replacing one Friend for another. i dunno about mr. sunshine. i think i can live without it. matthew perry's hair was distracting too. and i don't know if i can blame it ALL on absolutely fabulous, but jeez louise i don't know how many rich clueless rude white women who drink and do drugs i can take! i think they are on almost every show on t.v. it almost seems a given that i will see latino people shaking their heads over some stupid and insensitive thing that some white person says on t.v. latinos attack! or maybe i should blame The Office. or Arrested Development. but AbFab came first. that guy attacking foodies in that magazine article should do an essay about this instead. it must be some sign of late period imperial decine and fall or something.

holland taylor on two and a half men has pretty much made a career out of this character so i give her a pass. i mean there are people who are really good at it. but making the mom from that 70's show on the new bad abc show she is on some sort of half-assed abfab lady just seems so desperate for laughs. and the whole "oh just get pablo or paco or whatever the hell is name is to clean it up" is just standard joke #234 now. the difference now is this is supposed to be endearing in some way cuz they are so fucked up and clueless and don't know any better a la the office. eh, i don't know. i mean race and humor go hand in hand, but it kinda stopped being "outrageous" a zillion years ago.

although i guess this has been standard since archie bunker. cuz arch was endearing too. and you cringed but you were supposed to root for him. that kinda thing.

karen walker! i mean megan mullally. she was good at it. the post-abfab thing. it was all downhill after that.

forgot to mention that i saw the dude from cougar town who goes out with courtney cox's character at LAX when we were getting to our flight the other day. my only celeb sighting!

weird abed cameo on cougar town.

matthew perry loser show only lasted nine episodes but it was a loooooong nine episodes.

i think it's cute that apparently Scrubs + Cougar Town occur in the same universe. "Hooch is crazy."

happy endings is p lol, actually

actually

actually

cougar town is pretty awesome ... the only other network shows that bring the LOLs as consistently this season were parks and recreation and community.

I dropped Cougar Town before it got good, apparently, and now it seems like a lot of work would be needed to get up to speed. I'll get there before next year...maybe.

Also, I liked Mr. Sunshine...but I get why people wouldn't.

it's a bit weirder (and not that representative) of what cougar town has become, but this still had me cracking up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VGDsMESUx8

That was pretty funny indeed!

i thought happy endings sort of killed it? none of the jokes were partic quote-worthy but just the gangs all here vibe and the joy and ease of their interactions, even the two lame blonde characters were p good idk

Yeah, I really dug it. It does what it does very well.

the one lame blonde character is generally pretty good and the other one truly is lame but looks like elisha cuthbert so i'm always tolerating her. this show keeps maintaining that watchability baseline, maybe even raising it (himym: watch yr back, incumbency can only save you for so long). casey wilson looking better than ever.

i think theyve started to figure out what those two are good at as the shows progresses, elish cuthbert feeding peeps to her snake was p great, i thought. one of the things i really like abt this show versus himym or some of the other recent hangout comedies is that the empahsize how lame and comfortable the characters taste in music/movies/culture is

you guys otm, show had a very solid season premiere

That isn't Elisa Cuthbert? Hah! I was all proud of myself for recognizing her :P

Julie Bowen was on fire last night - Law & Order Special Parking Unit! I died.

no that is her, i just think balls mean the character 'looks like' the actress who is playing her

bowen's big speech was definitely one of the first modern family scenes in a while that i thought was really great

ahhh - gotcha. I'm terrible at recognizing any celebrity lower than "A list" so it was a shining moment that was almost taken away from me!

Mitchell spitting as he cried was pretty lulzy too. Much better episode than the first two! My husband is the EXACT same way as Cam when hungry. Heh.

I don't really get the love for happy endings, everyone just seems like such self-satisfied dicks.

i kind of like that the show isn't trying hard to make the characters likable (but also isn't quite going in an opposite seinfeld/it's always sunny direction). the worst thing about a lot of pretty young ppl network sitcoms is the overwhelmingly needy stench of LOVE US LOVE US LOVE US.

Julie Bowen had some good moments but I thought that was a really terrible episode.

why didn't my dvr record happy endings last night? :(

this dvr is so terrible. i can never get it to work properly

Cougar Town has been delayed until March, with its episode order cut from 22 to 15. RIP.

There's always Cougarton Abbey.

only 6 episodes tho

This just hasn't been Abed's week.

Pudi's on the Cougs, too?

He did a guset shot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWfJYJMrYa0

But I was just refering to the bad news about Community & Cougar Town breaking so close together.

cougar town!

huh.

during this ep of The Middle there is a scene where sue is talking to the older brother and a pink jacket keeps jumping around the shot with every cut and disappearing and reappearing. it is very distracting

Huh- I didn't notice that.

I've come to the conclusion that, with the exception of Happy Endings, ABC's Wednesday night lineup is an embarrassment of winning comedic performances on shows that I don't otherwise care for at all.

Gave up on Suburgatory so I'd agree.

Like, if your only requirement for a solid sitcom is funny people being funny, you could do much worse.

there is so much talking on this thread about the other shows that aren't modern family...modern family is pretty much the best comedy.

the little segments over the closing credits in modern family (like the one when everyone's talking about gloria's mispronunciations) >>> pretty much any other entire 30 min sitcom on the air now.

sorry modern family hasn't been great since season 1 (maybe halfway thru season 2 to be generous)

The best ABC comedy on Wednesday is Happy Endings

NZA must be an Emmy voter because afaict those are the only people who are still excited about Modern Family

The little pre-opening-credits vignette yesterday with Phil Dunphy in the doctor's office was pretty funny. I don't remember word for word but they were talking about the real estate market:

[Doctor behind Dunphy, putting on a glove.]
Dunphy: Well, it's a buyer's market so if you're a seller, y'know...
Doctor: Bend over.
Dunphy: Right, so it's not great for them, but...
Doctor: No, bend over.

Modern Family is still funny, don't get me wrong

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cougar-town-ric-swartzlander-329745

Showrunner carnage continues as Cougar Town moves to TBS. This seems less contentious though.