And that's too bad. Such a missed opportunity! There should be a show that gets, whether darkly or goofily or both, into the real grit of pregnancy and parenting. But this is not that show. Busying itself with boob jokes, the show relegates Lauren's entire soul-searching decision about whether to keep working or stay home — a decision that (a) she makes when she's like five minutes pregnant, hello, and (b) turns into a mean-girl battle between her polar-opposite best friends, and (c) about three of us, yuppie or not, have the luxury to make in the first place — to one day of hooky at the beach. Andrew does worry about money, but there's no agonizing about raising a moral or even healthy child, nor any awareness on Lauren's part that even as she rolls her eyes at the world-on-a-platter lives of her spoiled young charges, she owns 234,028 pairs of shoes. She worries about being a fat lady, not about being a mother. Also, I don't know a single person who actually wore anything called maternity underwear.

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I know. It's a comedy. But unless it's going to be over the top, like Arrested Development or even Scrubs, then it has to at least aim for truthiness in order to fly. That, unlike underwear laffs, is what makes true comedy — and just plain good television — universal. That is also what would bring in an audience, and not just of affluent yuppie parents hoping to see their reflections in the TV mirror. Who, as it is now, will watch it? Anyone familiar with infertility will click over to Anderson Cooper the minute LaurenThis show will not be TiVo television for late-night nursing. gets pregnant on the first try, apparently without any attention to timing her cycle. Actual or intended parents won't feel like this show "gets it;" it will not — and this could be its death knell — be TiVo television for late-night nursing. And those with no interest in parenting? Sorry, but they'll have about as much interest in this show as they do in your 20-week sonogram.

There's some irony there, actually. Notes was obviously created in a petrie dish, where laboratory technicians fused basic sitcom writing with market research and the cells divided into a show. Affluent, angsty, thirty-something parents are the newest, hottest psychographic! They worry about balancing work and family! They worry about balancing pregnancy and their Lucky jeans! Some of their friends are Smug Parents, while some are still single and wary! Okay, we'll get all of that in there — check, check, check — plus let's have the husband do the voice-over so we have at least a prayer of getting a male audience. Alas, it's so by the numbers — and by the stereotypes — that not only is it not likely to reach its intended core viewership, but it is also not likely to do them any favors. Its real audience, in fact, will likely be curmudgeonly newspaper columnists looking for yet another reason to complain about affluent, angsty, thirty-something parents.