Tivo subscribers were given an early view this morning of the new CBS sitcom The Class. 

The Class apparently comes from some of the same minds behind Friends.  I’ll let you in on a little secret. 

Friends, it ain’t. 

We open with Ethan calling up his old friends from his 3rd grade class, most of whom don’t remember him.  He’s trying to get everyone together for the 20th anniversary of the start of class, which was where he first met his girlfriend.  So it’s the 20th anniversary of the first day they met.  Sweet, or corny?  You be the judge.

Let’s get to the meat of it.  A wide array of characters show up, namely Lina (the sweet one), who just found her man in bed with another woman; Kat (the sarcastic one), Lina’s sister, who is obviously on her way to be Ethan’s love interest; Duncan (the fun one), who we first see playing Xbox in his mom’s house, where he lives; Kyle (the gay one), who was the heart-throb in school; Holly (the uptight one), who was dumped by Kyle at high school prom for a guy, and she needs to show him how successful she is; Richie (the funny one), whose life has spiralled downward since school and will become the love interest for Lina; Nicole (the pretty one) who used to date Duncan, but is now the bride of a man her father’s age.

There’s plenty to like about this show.  Pretty much all of the jokes that Richie delivers are spot on.  Holly’s (you know, the one that was dumped by the gay guy?) husband is obviously flamin’, and is played to perfection.  When the jokes work, they work wonderfully.

So what’s not so hot about it?  If the characters sound formulaic, it’s because they are.  I feel like they played all their cards at once.  Pretty much every couple that is going to hook up does so by the end of the episode.  When you consider Ross and Rachel or Jim and Pam from The Office, the relationships are a slow burn, waiting one or two seasons before they get together (assuming they do).  Not so with this show.

And, like I said, the jokes work about half the time.  For example, the first time we meet Kat, it’s when Ethan is calling her, and she puts down the phone while he continues to talk and then picks it up when she’s done with what she’s doing, all the while giving the “Uh-huh”.  Not the freshest of jokes, and not the best way to start off a new sitcom, in my opinion.  Also, when we first meet Richie, the phone keeps interrupting his attempts to swallow a handful of pills, all accompanied with the obviously canned laughter of the non-existant studio audience.  Suicide jokes can be funny (see: Jason Alexander’s cameo in Friends), but this didn’t work.

Even though I wrote a lot more about the cons than I did the pros, I think this was a pretty decent pilot.  It piqued my interest enough that I just might tune in.

The Class premieres Monday, September 18 at 8/7c.