2 Broke Girls: A 'modern day Laverne and Shirley'?

Kat Dennings' acid-tongued waitress and Beth Behrs' Manhattan princess may be the next great female comedy duo — if their new  writers rise to the occasion

"2 Broke Girls," starring Kat Dennings and Beth Behr, shows a lot of promise, though some critics hope the show's writers veer away from cheap shock-laughs.
(Image credit: Sonja Flemming/CBS)

In the new CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls, Kat Dennings (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Thor) plays Max, a scrappy Brooklyn diner waitress forced to work two jobs to make ends meet. Newcomer Beth Behrs plays Caroline, a former heiress whose assets are frozen after her Bernie Madoff-like father is imprisoned. Caroline seeks work at Max's diner to save money and face — "no one from the Upper East Side would ever go" there. By the end of the first episode, which aired Monday night, the two become unlikely friends, roommates, and business partners, a conceit that promises to help the show become "a modern day Laverne and Shirley." CBS claims that the show was its highest-testing pilot ever, but some critics groan that the its jokes were thin and strained. Is 2 Broke Girls worth investing in?

Yes. It's a "solid, old-fashioned sitcom": Dennings shines as Max, says Mary McNamara at the Los Angeles Times, infusing an acerbic deadpan with "as much grace and humor as humanly possible." And Behrs finds nuance in her Paris Hilton-like, smarter-than-she-looks Upper East Side princess. While the show may not boast a revolutionary concept, "amid the parade of bunnies, angels, stewardesses, and princesses" on TV this fall, Dennings' and Behrs' combination of smarts and sass is "as welcome as a cup of hot coffee in a white diner cup."

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