The most successful television shows, from Bewitched to Desperate Housewives, sell you the capsule plot of the show in one or two words. So what should we make of Cougar Town, which will either amuse or offend for using the unflattering tag for older, man-eating single women?

The show's creator and executive producer, Bill Lawrence, says he wrestled with the title for some time. "I thought it was risky for two reasons. As a joke, it might seem played out if we weren't careful and to some people it has negative connotations."

In the end, he says, he took the risk because TV shows no longer have the luxury of letting an audience take time to find them. "You need to come out of the gate with as many people as possible watching and I felt that it was a noisy title and that people would at least look at the show."

Cougar Town is set in a small Florida town and stars former Friends alumnus Courteney Cox as Jules Cobb, a recently divorced mother who returns to the dating scene. In the first half-dozen episodes it plays far more gently than the title suggests. It's a dysfunctional family comedy that is more quirky than sleazy.

Cougar Town owes its genesis to Lawrence's other comedy, Scrubs. When he was told US network NBC would not renew Scrubs for an eighth season, he started looking for a new project and colleagues suggested collaborating with Cox.

"I didn't know if she would like me, because I'm a bit of a pain in the ass, and I didn't know if I would like her, because I'm a bit of a pain in the ass," he says