(S01E01) Call me a hopeless romantic, but I was charmed by the series premiere of Cupid 2.0.

ABC's original Cupid from 10 years ago, also headed up by executive producer Rob Thomas, was a smart, playful and quirky hour of television that looked and felt like nothing else on the air at the time. ABC's promos for Thomas' remake made this new show look silly and the quirkiness look forced. Thankfully, that's not the case – for the most part.

Bobby Cannavale plays Trevor (played by Jeremy Piven in the original), a New York City bartender who claims he's Cupid, the god of romantic love. Expelled from Olympus, he's given the task of bringing one hundred couples together here on Earth. Trevor goes about his plan under the watchful eye of Sarah Paulson's Dr. Claire McCrae (Claire Allen in the original), a psychiatrist and best-selling self-help book author assigned to monitor Trevor's release from a psychiatric hospital.

The opening ten minutes was essentially a note-for-note riff on the original show's pilot. The rest of the ep never strayed too far from the '90s version either. It seems like Thomas and ABC are confident that a 10-year-old concept will play just fine in 2009, and they might be right. It's hard to tell judging only by the premiere. The new Cupid isn't the near-revelation the original was when it premiered back in 1998, but the cast was great, even some of the guest stars were memorable, and it was a fun, breezy hour of scripted TV (just what viewers might be craving after Dancing With the Stars).

Cannavale is an inspired choice for Trevor. The charismatic character has a lot in common with his role as an overzealous coffee vendor in 2003's The Station Agent. Cannavale displays less of Piven's acerbic edge and more childlike awe and infectious enthusiasm as Trevor, but it still works. Thankfully, Paulson's practical shrink – who, of course, doesn't believe in love at first sight – is nowhere near the killjoy I thought she was going to be. (I was expecting Monica Potter in Trust Me levels of awful there!) The supporting cast, including Camille Guaty and the always awesome Rick "Endless Mike" Gomez, showed a lot of potential, but we didn't get to hang with them very much.

Instead, we spent a lot of time with the "couple of the week," Dave and Madelyn (Sean Maguire and Marguerite Moreau), who even Trevor couldn't see were destined to fall in love.

Like in the original's pilot, Trevor used his charm and influence to help Dave, an illegal Irish immigrant, track down Holly, a girl he spent twenty minutes with once and is convinced is the love of his life. Things took a pleasant detour when Madelyn, a New York Post reporter, met Dave and offered to write a story about his quest. The two spent a lot of time together and eventually started to fall in love. Things were complicated when Holly showed up and Dave got deported. But the couple got a happy ending, of course, with Madelyn boldly going to Ireland to be with her "uncool" love.

This subplot could've been sketched out on a napkin in five minutes, but Moreau's performance (why isn't she a movie star yet?) helped make it worth watching.

There was some development in Trevor and Claire's relationship – looks like things turn out best when their personal philosophies about love and life meet in the middle – something I hope the show explores more than I think it will. The success of Cupid will mostly hinge on the two leads and the strength of the guest stars and the weekly relationship plot.

It's pretty light stuff, but there's potential for some real depth, and even darkness, here. This is a story about a man who, despite his sunny disposition, might turn out to be a disturbed individual suppressing an emotional trauma. In the original, we never found out if Piven's character was actually Cupid. With any luck ABC will allow Thomas, who turned a potentially one-note premise into an addictive multi-layered drama with Veronica Mars, the time and creative control to explore many sides of his characters and the show's themes. Love aint always pretty, and I'm willing to bet that there's more to Cupid 2.0 than the fun, diverting romantic comedy we got with this premiere.