The Class

(S01E02) For those of you who were trying to figure out how eight relative strangers, thrown together in a kind of a convoluted fashion, was going to constitute a sitcom, this episode shows you what the formula is going to be.

And what is that formula? Three parallel storylines that are not designed to intersect for some time in the future. You've got sappy Ethan's brewing friendship with the cynical Kat and Richie's accident-prone flirtation with Kat's twin Lina (how convenient is it that Kat and Lina are twins? That ensures that two of the pairs of strangers will stay connected); you have Nicole and Duncan's affair; and you have Kyle and Holly, who are still rebuilding their friendship after he came out of the closet at their prom ten years ago.

(S01E01) I'm not going to put a full review of The Class's pilot here, since I did one last week in an "early look" post. But I'll just tell you one thing: hold on. Like I said in the early review, the pilot is underwhelming, mainly because trying to establish relationships between eight unrelated characters in the span of 22 minutes is next to impossible. But based on the second and thrid episodes, these relationships will get stronger (and they won't try to intermix all eight people for now; individual storylines will develop, which you can see happening in the pilot); I genuinely laughed out loud a number of times during the second and third episodes, which is the hallmark of a comedy I'll stick with.

Anwyay, if you want more info on the show, look at the early review. Full reviews will return starting with episode two.

When I previewed rough-cut pilot of The Class (premieres Monday, Sept. 18 at 8 PM ET) back in June, I had my doubts about whether the loose association of the characters in the show would be able to withstand the rigors of a long-term series. The finished pilot didn't change my mind. But CBS was nice enough to include the second episode on the same screener as the pilot, and I'll tell you this: the show has potential. It seems an especially good companion for How I Met Your Mother, which it will preceed on Mondays, since both cater to the same late-20s crowd. But The Class does so without the cutsiness that can sometimes seep into HIMYM.