Cougar Town (2009)

Image credit: Michael Desmond/ABC

On the prowl: Courteney Cox plays a sex-starved single mom

You can't say the title doesn't give you fair warning. Although the hamlet in which Courteney Cox's single mom Jules resides is nicknamed Cougar Town for a school football team, that's the mildest joke this sex-crazed sitcom makes about its addled inhabitants. Scrubsexec producer Bill Lawrence has built a showcase for Cox as a real estate agent and manstarved mom who, remarkably, still manages to come off sweet 'n' smart. Mixing clinical realism (when did you last hear a C-section scar used as a punchline?) with ridiculous slang (a new boob job is referred to as ''gorilla heads''), Cougar Town is so brashly vulgar, it's endearing. It helps that Cox is joined by doleful Dan Byrd as her clever son, Freaks and Geeks' Busy Philipps as her wild pal, and the wittily sour Christa Miller (also from Scrubs) as her weary but horny neighbor. Did I mention the entire show is about getting and having sex? Cougar is so single-minded that this obsession itself becomes funny: The act amounts to another character on the show. How this will play among Friends fans remains to be seen, but you can't accuse Cox of playing it safe. Just sexy. B

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