At the risk of offending the trillions of Jennifer Aniston fans who don’t flock to see her movies, there is a reason her fame for the last 10 years has been directly connected to her personal life. She’s just not picking the best roles. Even her best “Friends” cannot write good roles for her. I am assuming that Courtney Cox had a say in the character Aniston played on Cougar Town tonight. The role did absolutely nothing for the show and certainly didn’t showcase Aniston’s comedic talent (and she does have it).
Too much time was spent on the not-funny Aniston character (as Jules’ life coach), which was stunt casting at its worst. The rest of the characters suffered from the lack of screen time. There were more poignant moments than funny, and I like my Cougar Town with a very, very good dose of each. As a comparison, Lisa Kudrow‘s turn as a dermatologist on last year’s episode “Rhino Skin” was perfectly cast and not only showcased her droll sarcasm, but allowed the rest of the ensemble to shine in her presence. Aniston as Glenn the life coach was downright annoying with her incense burning and breathing exercises; it was over the top and in too large of a dose. She was distracting and her appearance hung over the regular roles like a wet blanket.
Other goings-on included Laurie pretending that she wouldn’t miss Travis when he went to college by challenging him to a game of who can stay awake the longest. Busy Philipps looked awesome and hit all the right comedic notes, as usual. Jules now calls the fling with Grayson their Graytionship. Cute. When Grayson wanted some guy time, Jules freaked out and not only bothered her life coach incessantly, but turned to Big Joe — a frakkin’ awesome wine glass that was bigger than those giant fishbowl margarita glasses you can get at Chili’s (the ones they refuse to refill). I can sooo identify with that. Much to my dismay, I forgot to get wine to celebrate the return of Cougar Town. I’ll have to make up for it with the non-Aniston premiere next week, because I’m calling a mulligan.
Bits n bobs:
Clacked by Carissa Pavlica 
on Sep 23, 2010 @ 08:13 EST5EDT
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Nice review. I missed CT last night, but I might take your advice and wait until next week without Aniston. In Aniston’s defense (if you can call it that) she has the Good Girl, the Object of my Affection and others on her CV, I just don’t think she’s a good actress. Her character worked in the first couple seasons of ‘Friends,’ because they kept her grounded and the directors pushed her. I don’t think she gets that much anymore. As such, we see her work her fabulous hair, but nothing more. And, I hate to say it, with ‘Friends’ at her back and fabulous hair on her side, she’ll continue to get great roles. Eventually, she’ll probably live up to them -
Agreed — fabulous review and I’ve seen the first 2 episodes and feel the same way as you did, Carissa. LOVED the 2nd episode (when I watched it, I actually thought it was the premiere because ABC released it for viewing before the actual premiere) precisely because it was the cast we know and love. Jennifer Aniston’s role was utterly ‘meh’ and pretty annoying and I am so surprised that Ausiello twittered it as hilarious … butt-kisser! ;-)
*POST AUTHOR*
Thanks An…there were a couple of good moments, so I don’t want to turn you off completely. After all, it is still our gang in it. I wanted to wrestle Aniston off the screen, but couldn’t find that option on my remote!
Deb – One thing I’ve learned is that Ausiello and Kristin at E! will kiss virtually any ass that is on our screen. Blast them!
I thought she was ok – about the same as Brit Brit on HIMYM. Glad you caught the “(Still)” :-)
I have to agree with Deb, this wasn’t really Premiere episode material. I guess they thought it was a good idea to try and pull new people in with stuntcasting Jen but that all just shows us again how strange execs think. Nobody (!) will watch Cougar Town again based on this episode. The whole dynamic wasn’t explained at all and if it weren’t for 22 previous episodes, I wouldn’t have felt anything during this episode. Nothing when Laure told Travis she’s going to miss him and nothing when Grayson told Jules he missed her.
Still I’m glad the show is back. This is the 10th year with a Bill Lawrence comedy show for me and it’s still awesome :-)
Hm. I’m a bit torn right now. Like I said before this way you manage to hit the nail on the head in your reviews and the overall length is really really good but I don’t want to come across as a kissass. Let’s just say: keep it up. It’s nice to have someone who kinda thinks like me and not have Ivey and Aryeh make me go “WTF?” all the time when reading their reviews.
*POST AUTHOR*
Sebastian – I will not turn away from an asskissin, because I tend browbeat myself plenty! ;-) I think we agreed a lot in the comments before, so there is no surprise I’m showing a bit of that solidarity now.
You brought up a good point – if someone turned in for the stunt, they missed what makes the show tick and I see no reason they would want to come back. That just stinks. On the other hand, if Jules had driven the life coach sessions with her issues, as sort of an overview of the last season, it may have worked. Cox must feel sorry for Aniston and put her needs above her own. She’s done her good deed. No need to bring on David Schwimmer as some other doctor (if all Friends return in some sort of a provider role). No please no
Ha! Exactly what I thought. If they’d used it as an overview. I thought that while watching. Cool :-)
I mean we don’t if this is really the case but this so extremely smells like some executive shuffled the episodes around. And it sucked. I mean not so much all in all (Jen’s movies are worse if you ask me and trust me I have “And then came Polly” on DVD standing behind me on a shelf) but I simply think that she keeps playing Rachel. Even her so-called “indie success” “The Good Girl” showed us a different variety of Rachel – just a dumb one (if you ask me). And since she’s already been on “Dirt” I wonder if this was really necessary and who pushed her casting. I bet even more execs. But whatever. IMHO the show won’t suffer from that.
About David Schwimmer: he won’t return to acting. He’s done with that. I doesn’t even like doing interviews and the only guest-appearance was on “30 Rock” and that was during green week where he was able to market some good cause I think, right?
I mean it’s not like we don’t have to suffer anyway. “Run fat boy run” was really sub-par.
Anyway, again, keep it up. You’re a natural. You go girl!
*snicker*
This was the first time I’d seen Cougar Town, mostly because I hated the name of the show. I know; silly reason. I didn’t mind J.A. at all. At least she still looks like the same person. What has Courtney Cox done to her upper lip and, well … her *face?*
And to me, and mind you I haven’t seen but this one–CC is playing Monica again, so it didn’t surprise me at all that J.A. was “Rachelesque.”
I got no insight into the backstory of the characters last night, so it’s impossible for me to say whether or not it was a good premiere episode. But I’ll watch again. I chuckled at parts.
I was kind of hoping they would find some new jokes beyond the “I’m old/horny” thing, but alas, they didn’t.
*POST AUTHOR*
Do you mean overall on the series? I think they’ve gone far beyond that. It’s about their friendships and relationships now. Jules need for Grayson is about the man, not his “junk.” At least that’s how I see it.