Better With You

Better With You is a genuinely funny, well-acted traditional sitcom reminiscent of "Dharma & Greg" and other past successful romantic comedies.

These actors are serious sitcom pros, and their show is actually about something genuine--sibling bonding/rivalry, parental button-pushing, relationship-building. It's nice to see some emotional meat in a live-audience staging again, feeding off the energy and reactions of real people.

It may not be an original setup, but the cast is good and the writing's better than you might expect from a former "Friends" writer who went on to produce "Joey."

Like several new shows this season, the ABC comedy is neither cover-your-eyes bad nor set-the-DVR-season-pass good. It just sort of is what it is, which is occasionally cute and amusing--thanks mostly to a cast of comedy veterans--but largely forgettable.

This likable and predictable new sitcom about three couples in the same family probably wouldn't get a lot of attention all by itself. But slung in the hammock between "The Middle" and "Modern Family," two established sitcoms about endearingly off-center families, it should snuggle right in.

It's a temperature-controlled How I Met Your Mother. [27 Sep 2010, p.56]

It's as rote and unfunny and ridiculous as hundreds of other ambitionless sitcoms to hit the air.