Early Look: Retro Sitcom 'Hot in Cleveland' is Saved By its Four Leads

If 'Hot in Cleveland,' TV Land's first foray into scripted comedy, feels like it's a throwback, that's because it is. Four veteran stars, an audience, multiple cameras, lines that are full of zingers and audience-pleasers. It's a model that has been derided in critic circles for years, even though when the writing and the acting is strong, it works like a charm. After all, the most popular comedies on TV -- 'The Big Bang Theory' and 'Two and a Half Men' -- follow this formula.

Most of the time, when the writing is bad, the show will be, too, no matter how good the actors are -- witness the god-awfulness that was ABC's 'Hank' last year. But every so often, the acting elevates the mediocre material and makes the show entertaining enough to keep people curious.

That's the case with 'Hot in Cleveland,' which debuts on June 16 at 10PM ET. Without the collective strength of the four pros that are the show's leads -- Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick, Jane Leeves and the incomparable Betty White -- the pilot's implausible premise and eye-rolling dialogue would have been suitable for an episode of 'Three's Company' instead of a show debuting in 2010. But maybe it's that way on purpose. Read on to find out why.

The show revolves around Melanie Moretti (Bertinelli), a Los Angeleno who wrote a book listing the things you should do before you die but hasn't done any of it. Freshly divorced and feeling low, she takes her own advice and goes on a trip to Paris with her best friends, Victoria Chase (Malick), an over-the-hill former soap star, and Joy Scroggs (Leeves), the "eyebrow queen" of Hollywood.

When the plane makes an emergency landing in Cleveland, the women go to a bar and notice that the men are actually ogling them, and that the consumption of beer and chili fries isn't frowned upon. Empowered by the attention, Melanie decides to stay and rents out a huge Victorian house that comes complete with its own cantankerous caretaker, Elka (White).

That last bit of plot gymnastics is straight out of the era when sitcoms had theme songs and feel-good endings. We get it; Betty's a hot commodity, and the show somehow wedged her in in order to promote the show. However, White makes the most of it, as her no-nonsense character is the highlight of the pilot.

Even though the scene where the gals meet Elka has been repeated ad nauseum, hearing White go, "What are ya, a cop?" when Leeves says she smells pot still makes me laugh. It's probably why the writers at 'SNL' went to the "old lady saying unexpected things" well so much when White hosted; it may be cliche, but it makes me laugh.

The rest of the pilot's writing is just that goofy, though, filled with the same kind of wacky misunderstandings and bursting-through-the-door goofiness that reminds a person of sitcoms of the distant past. But White, Malick, Leeves and especially Bertinelli infuse their cartoonish characters with so much personality and warmth that, even though the pilot tied itself into knots trying to maneuver itself into position to set up the rest of the series, I still wanted to see what was next out of this quartet.

Another TV vet, John Schneider, guests in the pilot as an early love interest for Melanie. There are plans for other tube favorites, like Carl Reiner, Wayne Knight, Susan Lucci and Hal Linden, to guest as well.

Given the guest stars and the fact that the show is on TV Land, there does seem to be a purpose to the retro feel of the show. And maybe that's not all that bad. But it just feels like, although the viewing public waxes nostalgic for the good ol' days of sitcoms, they've "seen too much" to embrace those old values in a new show. Maybe, just maybe, the show's stars will keep them coming back.