Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life

Too familiar to be truly amusing, this show coasts along on the charm of its leads, but viewers may wish they were given fresher plot lines and dialogue. In the show's pilot, Barrett and crew celebrate graduating college, which leads to a blowout party, which leads to (you guessed it) hijinks! Hijinks that wind up paying off in mayhem that winds up bringing the crew together. If you think you may have seen this plot before, you're right. The Hangover jumps to mind, as do any number of episodes of Friends or How I Met Your Mother. It's a real pity, because each and every one of the actors cast in this retread are charming and adorable; if only they were given real situations to react to instead of over-the-top TV-comedy plot lines.

It's also extraordinarily tiresome that Barrett is given a hot neighbor (via a meet-cute vignette, naturally) who's clearly supposed to be the one sympathetic female character in a cast laden with manboys. Alas, all she's given in the name of characterization is that she likes to curse, dates older men, and doesn't want to date our hero because he's not mature enough. This comedy may appeal to teens, and it's mild enough for older ones, though parents may want to watch along to counter any sexist or otherwise iffy messages.