I am – Hercules!!
A CBS sitcom from writer-producer Claudia Lonow (“The War at Home,” “Cashmere Mafia,” “Surviving Suburbia”), “Accidentally On Purpose” is about a 37-year-old San Francisco newspaper movie critic who finds herself impregnated by a twentysomething aspiring chef. You could maybe call it “Cougar Town” if ABC didn’t have another sitcom by that name debuting in a few days. Based on a memoir by Contra Costa Times film critic Mary F. Pols, it stars Jenna Elfman (“Dharma & Greg”), Jon Foster (“Life As We Know It,” “Windfall”) and Ashley Jensen (“Extras,” “Ugly Betty”). Elfman told Julie Chen Wednesday that she actually is pregnant in real life and on purpose. I found it to be typical sitcom swill, maybe a little funnier than “How I Met Your Mother” but not quite as funny as “Two and a Half Men.” Those are the two sitcoms it’s sandwiched between. I expect it to be another CBS sitcom fans of “How” and “Half” will love and another CBS sitcom hit I can’t imagine myself tuning into on a regular basis. USA Today says:

… [Elfman] pushes too hard to squeeze laughs from a mirthless script and add color to a show that's numbingly nondescript. Were she just wasting her talent, it would be bad enough. She's misusing it, and that's worse. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… First impressions count, and “Accidentally on Purpose,” the new Jenna Elfman comedy, begins with a poor one. … Everything in the pilot, written by executive producer Claudia Lonow, is a hair or three too strenuous; Billie has been knocked down to a few easy-to-grasp impulses, and almost all the other roles are filled by stereotypes -- Jensen's most wastefully -- in stereotypical relationships. Nevertheless, the premise is full of interesting possibilities about love and age and unconventional parenting. (So far it has been mostly about sex.) They are only possibilities from here, but they are there for the taking.

The Washington Post says:

… makes predictable stops and toots its horn gamely and so what if it chugs around in circles? … it painlessly kills some time, and it fills the gap between the shows that precede and follow it. It's a bridge, a conduit, a bland bit of linkage. It's certainly preferable to having a big blank gap there. And that's not nothing. Many's the show of which even that cannot be said.

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… your standard old-school comedy with a laugh track … CBS can turn a lot of tired fluff into sitcom hits, so who knows about "Accidentally on Purpose"? There are laughs here and there, but mostly it's all so very familiar …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… lands somewhere between "Bang" and "Men," at least as far as raciness is concerned. It's not as funny as either of those hits -- and certainly not as good a show as the superior "Bang" -- but it is more enjoyable than "Rules of Engagement," which returns at mid-season (unfortunately). …

The Newark Star Ledger says:

… the kind of lame and predictable sitcom that I would hope Elfman's TV counterpart at the paper would have the wisdom to pan, and pan hard. …

The Boston Herald says:

… deliberately humdrum. …

The Boston Globe says:

… The stereotypes in play on “Accidentally on Purpose’’ are flat, if harmless, from the get-go. Zack and his buddies are frat-boy video-gamers, one of whom uses Billie’s grandmother’s urn as a water pipe. Billie and her requisite pair of sex-and-the-city pals, one of whom, Olivia (Ashley Jensen), is the requisite lush, have requisite girl talk. … so contrived, you feel as though you’ve seen it already while you’re watching it for the first time. …

Variety says:

… Jenna Elfman remains charming enough, though she's morphed from the free-spirited Dharma into a more grounded and responsible movie critic (oxymoronic, yes) who beds a younger man -- yielding unintended consequences, if not much hilarity. The pilot is breezy enough, and there are solid supporting players, including Ashley Jensen and Grant Show. Those ingredients, however, are thus far more promising than what first comes out of the oven.…

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… an utterly predictable comedy (what, you don't think Zack and Billie will fall in love in Season 2, right after he starts dating another chick and Billie has an epiphany?) that's got a few fun lines. …

8:30 p.m. Monday. CBS.

From The Guy Who Wrote
The Making of Star Wars
And The Guy Who Wrote
Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays!!