When Melissa McCarthy heard about Mike & Molly, she wanted no part of it.
"Before I read it, just the thought of it upset me," said the 39-year-old actress.
Mike & Molly is TV2's new comedy, and it follows the relationship of the title characters, who get to know each other at Overeaters Anonymous meetings.
McCarthy, who played chef Sookie St James for seven seasons on Gilmore Girls and has appeared in numerous films, had to be talked into reading the script, which she feared might contain "potshots and cheap writing".
After she was told that the comedy would be shot near her house, that it would have the easier hours of a multicamera sitcom and that it was co-created by comedy guru Chuck Lorre (The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men), she relented and read the script.
"I didn't take it as making fun at all, and I think I'm really sensitive to that stuff," McCarthy said.
And though it is not perfect, Mike & Molly is more sensitive to its lead characters than you might expect.
McCarthy and co-star Billy Gardell play a fourth-grade teacher at the fictional Wrigley Elementary and a Chicago cop respectively, and though the show depicts them dealing with weight issues, it also shows them struggling with shyness and self-confidence.
At a recent panel on the show at the Television Critics Association press tour, executive producer Lorre and creator Mark Roberts insisted that the show will be more about the couple's blossoming romance than it is about their weight.
"I didn't set out to write a show about Overeaters Anonymous. I wanted to write a show about two people at the beginning of a relationship, and that was the part of it that intrigued me the most," Roberts said.
Part of the impetus to make the show came from his desire to depict real people and their regular lives.
"Most of the stuff on TV seems pretty unrealistic to me," Roberts said. "People ... dress really nice, and their apartments are really nice. And I don't buy any of their problems."
McCarthy said she liked the idea that Mike & Molly depicts middle-class and working-class people.
And she is well aware that many people in Hollywood can be astonishingly clueless when it comes to the lives of regular people.
Three years ago, the pilot for another Lorre show, The Big Bang Theory, took an often mean-spirited tone toward the collection of nerds in the cast, but that show righted itself quickly and evolved into a much more nuanced and enjoyable experience.
Despite the fact that some of the jokes and some of the show's supporting characters haven't jelled, Mike & Molly starts from a more sincere place: Roberts and Lorre appear to be interested in the characters as people, not just as vehicles for jokes about cops and doughnuts. Perhaps as it veers away from that meet-cute conceit, Mike & Molly will evolve into a Big Bang-style ensemble comedy.
There's certainly no denying that McCarthy and Gardell are quite winning in their roles.
"This may sound ridiculous to some of you, but this isn't a show about weight," Lorre said at the Mike & Molly panel.
"It's a show about people trying to make their lives better and find someone that they can have a committed relationship with ... If we're [still] talking about this issue come Episode 6, we've got a serious problem because it would get tired really quickly.
"It's not enough to hang a series on, not by any stretch of the imagination."
- Mike & Molly screens on Sundays at 8pm on TV2.
