Better With You

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 low-key premise, but not a bad one. And when you have comic actors this solid on-board, you can almost make believe that this flimsiness has substance.

It's not a bad sitcom, just a bit ordinary given the company it's keeping.

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.

The executive producers, Shana Goldberg-Meehan and Greg Malins, both worked on "Friends," and the jokes in Better With You have the polish and the off-center, sneakily funny quality that marked that show. But the single-family multigeneration setup seems to have facilitated an undertone of nastiness and desperation in the humor, most clearly expressed in the condescending portrayal of the youngest couple.

Better With You has the foundation to be an engaging comedy. Right now, it's difficult to commit to a long-term relationship

Better With You fits in with that lesser two-thirds of ABC's returning sitcom block, and while it's by no means an eyesore, it hasn't done anything to improve the neighborhood.

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

It's ABC's attempt to replicate last season's wildly successful intergenerational comedy Modern Family, and, like many genetic experiments, it ends in mutant disaster.