Like the mass of new hospital based dramas, this year also sees a huge Cougar movement.  This has been brewing for a while in shows such as The New Adventures of Old Christine, Desperate Housewives and a popular sketch on Saturday Night Live, however it is also prevalent in reality with Demi Moore, Madonna and Hale Berry. While Accidentally on Purpose is not the biggest cougar show of the season (that title goes to Cougar Town – reviewed soon), it is the first.

In case you are asking what a cougar is, the Urban Dictionary defines a cougar as “An older woman who frequents clubs in order to score with a much younger man. The cougar can be anyone from an overly surgically altered wind tunnel victim, to an absolute sad and bloated old horn-meister, to a real hottie or milf.” Our hottie in question here is celebrity scientologist Jenna Elfman, who you might remember from Dharma And Greg or not… the show was quite forgettable.

So the show starts with Billie (Jenna) at her work party with her quirky friend Olivia (Ashley Jensen, who you might remember as the quirky friend in Ugly Betty and Ricky Gervais’ quirky friend in Extras), Billie has recently broken up with her boyfriend since he was not going to propose and now 37 she is feeling a little over the hill. Then she gets hit on by young 20 something chef Zach (Jon Foster), they go back to his bachelor pad and make babies on his mattress on the floor.

Now pregnant Billie decides to break off the relationship, but Zach’s dad walked out on him when he was a kid and he doesn’t want the same for his child, so although the relationship is sexually over he now moves in.

There you have it, the pilot sets the scene for Billie and Zach’s worlds of the professional and the young playstation playing bachelor to collide.  This episode is all set up and it is basically an odd couple comedy, beyond that there is nothing which is knock out funny or original, it just is a bog standard easy watching studio sitcom. There must be something bitter sweet for the actresses getting work from this the rise in popularity of the Cougar, on one hand they are getting work, but on the other they have been relegated to being portrayed as over the hill simply on account of their age on paper. In TV terms men at 37 have not yet reached the age where they can be classed as distinguished while women are clawing at the curtains desperate to get their hands on a wedding ring or a penis which ever comes first… no pun intended.

Written by: Ryan Murphy & Brad Falchuk & Ian Brennan
Directed by: Claudia Lonow
Starring: Jenna Elfman, Jon Foster, Ashley Jensen, Nicolas Wright, Grant Show, Lennon Parham
Date premièred: 21^st September 2009
UK Details: TBC

Tags: Accidentally on Purpose, CBS, Comedy, Cougar Town, Desperate Housewives, Sit-Com

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 24th, 2009 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Comedy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.