Happily Divorced

In Happily Divorced, TV Land, the cable channel for baby boomers, finally may have found the perfect companion to its smash "Hot in Cleveland."

The show has some hilarious moments and perks along between them as you might expect a Drescher show to. It's a fine and frothy companion to the big show on TV Land (is that an oxymoron?) at 10 p.m. Wednesday, the Betty White-starrer Hot in Cleveland.

Happily Divorced, TV Land's third shot at a new old-style sitcom--the George Segal parents-and-son romp "Retired at 35" is the other one--tries harder than "Cleveland" and generates fewer laughs. "Happily Divorced" is not without its pleasures.[...] Okay, Drescher, who most famously starred in "The Nanny," may be an acquired taste. But if you like her combination of attitude and accent, she provides a full dose of both here.

Once known, this fact [the series is based on the lives its creators] lends to the project an authenticity that might not otherwise be apparent, so steeped is it in the rhythms and conventions of the 20th century sitcom.

It stays old school and unambitious in order to blend in well with the classic sitcoms on TV Land's roster. The scripts are more like excuses for the stars to go on camera and ham it up than well-constructed state-of-the-art comic material.

Drescher still looks good a dozen years removed from the last season of The Nanny. But the lines coming from her mouth are too obvious for words.

The premise's autobiographical underpinnings notwithstanding, Divorced is so painfully broad and filled with gay stereotypes all but Drescher's most faithful fans will yearn to be separated from their TVs.