Welcome to 'Cougar Town'

Courteney Cox, you may recall, did a three-episode stint on "Scrubs" last season.

Cox, who's best known for her starring role on "Friends," appeared in the first three episodes of the eighth season of "Scrubs" — shows that aired back in January.

Bill Lawrence, not coincidentally, is the executive producer of both "Scrubs" and Cox's new sitcom, "Cougar Town" (Wednesdays, 8:30 p.m., ABC/Ch. 4). And Lawrence and Cox had been talking about possibly doing a sitcom together when Cox agreed to the "Scrubs" stint.

"We got to do essentially a tryout," Lawrence said. "It went really well, and we had a blast, so we just thought we'd go on from there."

It was sort of like Lawrence and Cox were dating to find out if they were compatible enough to agree to what could end up being a years-long "marriage" of sort — if the sitcom turned out to be a success.

"We had both been talking about it," Lawrence said. "And I'm a pain in the a--. Courteney's not. We thought we'd do a little tryout on 'Scrubs' and see what it's like to work together.

"And she is the easiest and most fun person to work with and is the best relationship I've ever had with any female."

He said that while sitting on a panel with the cast of "Cougar Town." The cast includes Christa Miller, who plays the best friend of Cox's character, Jules.

And Miller is also Mrs. Bill Lawrence.

LONG-SUFFERING WIFE: The premise of "Cougar Town" is that Jules, a recently divorced, 40ish woman, is dating younger men.

Lawrence insisted that's not an unusual situation.

"My wife is much, much, much, much older than I am," said Lawrence, 40.

"You know, why?" Miller, 45, asked in mock exasperation. "Why?"

But she's used to it by now. Miller also played Jordan, the shrewish wife of Dr. Cox, on "Scrubs." And, apparently, her "Cougar Town" character, Ellie, is to some extent based on Miller herself.

She said that if she "was ever in a cranky mood or being snarky to him," Lawrence would "gleefully" start "writing down little things that I would say. And so I think that character kind of came out of that."

"And I was lucky enough that ABC let me play a character that my husband wrote for me."

TITLE TROUBLE: Lawrence readily admits that he was more than a little bit worried about titling his new sitcom "Cougar Town."

"What we were hoping to do ... was set the bar so low hoping that occasionally people would watch it and go, 'Wow, this is not as horrible as I thought it would be,' " he said.

Actually, the show has been rather successful so far. ABC quickly picked it up for a full season, and the ratings have been pretty good.