Is A To Z 26 Kinds Of Fun, Or Fit Only For Beginning Readers?

What Is This Thing?

Andrew has somehow managed to maintain his romantic ideas about love even while working for an online dating site. So when he has actual interaction with Zelda, a lawyer and dissatisfied and believes he shared a significant look at a concert years ago, he's sure that means they're meant to be. Except she says it wasn't her! Whaaaaaaaat?

When Is It On?

Thursdays at 9:30 PM on NBC.

Why Was It Made Now?

How I Met Your Mother finally having exited the stage, there may be room again in viewers' hearts for a high-concept sitromcom. And speaking of that show...

What's Its Pedigree?

What do you know, Zelda happens to be played by Cristin Milioti, The Mother herself! Andrew is played by Drop Dead Diva/Mad Men double threat Ben Feldman. Let's focus on how charming and likable they both are and not talk too much about how one of series creator Ben Queen's previous credits is the screenplay for Cars 2.

...And?

Well, Milioti and Feldman are very charming and likable. In fact, Andrew is like the talking, moving answer to the question "What if Ted Mosby weren't such a drip?" I had thought Ted had burnt the character of the optimistic male romantic for a whole generation of TV, but Andrew makes it believable again. The whole thing where he sends his co-workers on a social media scavenger hunt to prove he's right about having seen Zelda at the show is a little self-consciously "IT IS 2014" in the same way the Selfie pilot is; I guess it would make the show less believable to people who are actually single now if the show elided contemporary references to How People Meet And Hook Up Today, but I feel like if this thing goes past a season, those are just going to date the show.

Milioti also has a great prickly energy that's very reminiscent of what I liked about her as The Mother. The "girl who has her guard up" trope is kind of tired -- and hey, isn't it crazy how those keep running into hopeless-romantic guys? -- but she makes it believable, and I'm interested to find out more about that bus full of possible hippie fathers that dropped her off at school in that flashback in the pilot.

Also, Zelda has many cute outfits that I enjoyed coveting.

...But?

As I mentioned above, this is a high-concept sitcom: the conceit is that the show documents the couple's entire relationship, and we're guided through it by an omniscient narrator (Katey Sagal). Presumably she will be somewhat more reliable than Ted was on How I Met Your Mother, but I am maybe a little fatigued by the idea of another show where there's (a) a multi-year plan that (b) might end up getting abandoned anyway.

Also tiresome are our leads' best friends, because you'll never guess what, but his is a chubby schlub and hers is a polished career woman and since he tricked her into sleeping with him, now they hate each other! Conflict is necessary for a show to work; simmering animosity is not the same thing.

Finally: Christina Kirk is horribly miscast as Andrew's hard-charging boss. That is a face and voice meant to play wallflowers and librarians, not shrieking workaholics.

...So?

It's actually not possible to overestimate Feldman and Milioti's appeal, because even though the pilot maybe made me snicker but once, I'm still definitely in for more.