Mike & Molly

Mike & Molly may not at first seem to offer much (other, that is, than streams of fat jokes), but it boasts a cast with distinctive looks and a capacity to deliver quick comedic jabs that can make you howl. That these come unexpectedly in the midst of endless gross clatter is one of those mysteries of the creative process best not to dwell upon.

It's Kurtz and Mixon that really elevate Mike & Molly from most couple-centric comedies.

While many of the weight jokes are very funny, there are a few too many of them. Still, what matters most for the show's future health is that it does not define Mike and Molly as "fat." They're nice, normal, relatable people who eat too much and want to eat less.

As a Chicago cop and a fourth-grade teacher falling in love despite their own insecurities, they make a sweet, relatable team.

Gardell and McCarthy are two of the more realistic-feeling, instantly appealing sitcom personalities in ages. They're enough to make it worth drudging through the sludge tonight's pilot considers comedy writing.

Mike & Molly, a romantic comedy about two people (Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy) who meet at Overeaters Anonymous, is, like most Lorre shows, a conventional-looking sitcom that manages to be very funny in a format that's been around for more than 50 years.

Mike & Molly has more of the crude humor of "Men" than "Big Bang" had at the start, but it's offset by a sweetness in the lead characters that makes this sitcom a welcome addition to CBS's Monday night laughter lineup.

The sane and well-meaning series Mike & Molly (executive produced by Chuck Lorre, a creator of "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory") begins on CBS on Monday. A comedy about life lived not in the low triple digits of the bathroom scale, this is network television of the old school.

There's enough comedy content in this first seating to warrant keeping Mike & Molly on the TiVo menu, even if it's not quite love at first bite.

It's much sweeter and funnier than it sounds.

Underneath the crude humor, there's a sweetness and an honesty to the show. The duo's struggle with weight is believable.

The new sitcom Mike & Molly won't change your life, but it will make 30 minutes of it happier and more fun.

Frankly, the premiere's funniest don't focus on weight (these are also the lines featured most frequently in trailers, suggesting that someone is aware of the line the fat jokes are walking). Let's hope for a time-soon-when Mike & Molly runs out of fat jokes and moves on to explore the dynamics of two people falling in love while working to overcome personal demons.

The potential for cringeworthiness is high, and the pilot sometimes falls on the wrong side of the line between self-deprecatingly comic and just plain mean. But there's a real sweetness to the tentative romance brewing between Mike, the beat cop played by comic Billy Gardell, and Molly, an elementary school teacher (Melissa McCarthy).

If you walk away from the Mike & Molly pilot and tell me that you hate it, because the only version you remember is the grating, pratfall-laden "laughing at" version, I can't say you're wrong. I can try to point you to the better parts of the pilot, like Mike's "share" to the Overeaters Anonymous group or his very different "share" to Molly's class of students, but as Chris Farley could have told you, those things don't get cheers like the "fat guy falls down" hijinks.

Many of those gags are mechanical and flat, although they are delivered as though they were not. But when the leads are focused on each other, size no longer matters and the show flickers to life.

The show almost lost me early on with a clumsy gag when Molly's workout routine is upstaged by mom and sis eating chocolate cake right in front of her. (Who would do that?) But it gets better from there, although the whole enterprise seems like a lot of empty (for now) calories.

Mike & Molly unquestionably has a lot of funny moments. But realizing you've just been laughing at 22 consecutive minutes of socially unredeemed fat jokes may leave you feeling as if you've just eaten a 36-inch anchovy-and-pineapple pizza: bloated and yucky.

Here, the mix of schadenfreude and reductionism coming from the writers makes Mike & Molly cold and calculating, despite its likable leads and cast.

There's something blandly nutrition-less and sugary about Mike & Molly, CBS's new Hostess Twinkie of a Monday night sitcom.

The show seems sympathetic to them as far as it goes, but the fat humor is just predictable and lame.