Despite a diversionary opening salvo of post-feminist raunch and unfortunate racial stereotyping, 2 Broke Girls is a solid, old-fashioned sitcom about two mismatched girls taking on the big city and makin' their dreams come true.
It's so old-fashioned, in fact, that they're waitresses.
In a Brooklyn diner. Where Max (Kat Dennings), the dark-haired, wise-crackin' downtown girl, rules the roost and Caroline (Beth Behrs), the blonde trust-fund princess, is the new staff member, so clueless she doesn't know how to "marry" the ketchup bottles.
That's because Caroline is the daughter of a fictionalised version of Bernie Madoff (who has thus far fuelled story lines for Damages as well as Revenge), which means her trust fund is frozen and she is out on the streets.
Although she looks like Paris Hilton, she's a Wharton business school graduate, making her a perfect match for Max, adept at taking down rude customers but, deep down, just a girl who makes good cupcakes and has low self-esteem.
There are vagina and lesbian jokes, and the sexual objectification of Max's perpetually topless boyfriend, but the essentials are meat-and-potatoes sitcom, which is surprising considering the combined edge factor of Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City) and stand-up Whitney Cummings.
But meat and potatoes remain popular for a reason, and amid the parade of bunnies, angels, stewardesses and princesses tromping across the screen this season, a couple of smart, sassy waitresses from the opposite sides of the tracks are as welcome as a cup of hot coffee.
It certainly helps that one of them is played by Dennings, who has the deadpan but endearing comic delivery of a young Catherine Keener (whose daughter she played in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.)
Newcomer Behrs provides a strong foil; her Caroline may be Brazilian blowout blonde and over-accessorised for any occasion, but she's smart, resourceful and far less diva-like than the usual television versions of her species.
The role of rich white woman as comic pinata is filled by Brooke Lyons, who plays Upper East Side new mummy for whom Max babysits and is so moronic she has named her twins Brad and Angelina.
The diner is also populated by the assorted usual suspects, including a salacious short-order cook (Jonathan Kite), an article-dropping Asian owner (Matthew Moy) and a wizened joke-telling cashier (Garrett Morris).
But the heart of the show is the womance - the inevitable friendship between the two women as they reluctantly team up to learn how to be truly independent.
And because it is never explained in the pilot, "marrying" the ketchup bottles means taking one half-full bottle and balancing it on top of another half-full bottle to make a full bottle, which is not nearly as hard as it sounds.
2 Broke Girls premieres Wednesday at 8pm on TV2.
