Newlyweds: Are You Ready To Commit To NBC's New Rom-Com? Grade The Premiere!

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TV veterans Téa Leoni and Tim Daly are married in real life, and now they're playing a couple who rushes into marriage on the new NBC sitcom "Newlyweds." But did Friday's premiere make you want to stick around past the honeymoon?

When we meet Jeanie (Leoni) and James (Daly), they're grumbling about being stuck on yet another blind date. But when they see each other, they're instantly smitten. They seem like complete opposites — she's an eighth-grade teacher who seizes the day; he's a philosophy professor who keeps his feet firmly on the ground — but there's definitely a spark there. When his talk of roasting vegetables gets her hot, they end up in bed together, and they're still glowing the next morning... until he explains he has to go to Norway for a month.

James also meets Jeanie's kids Poppy (Emma Meisel) and Lolo (Ignatio Diaz-Silverio), who are understandably alarmed to find a strange man in their house. He heads off to Norway, where he's joined by an oddball teaching assistant named Arvid (Bill O'Neill), who longs to see Los Angeles: "It's always been my dream to be tan." But even separated by an ocean, Jeanie and James' love continues to grow — and when she refers to herself as his "girlfriend," he doesn't object.

The new lovers do face a few obstacles

Jeanie and James continue flirting long-distance: She even has to consult her mortified daughter about how to send "a sexy pic." On the phone, Jeanie tells James about her long list of things it'd be cool to do, like climb the Alps. But he's a simpler guy, he tells her: "You're my entire list." Jeanie is a little thrown, though, when she sneaks into James' place to leave him flowers and finds his brash ex-wife Claudia, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Claudia thinks Jeanie is the new maid and complains to her about James' new girlfriend, and she's annoyed by James' persnickety behavior, including his long-brewing manuscript she's not allowed to touch. So she throws the hundreds of pages up in the air for him to reassemble. Oh, did we mention he doesn't use page numbers?

When James arrives home, he finds Jeanie there, along with her kids, who she called in to help her put his manuscript back together. (Lolo is wearing James' robe — and he broke his hot tub.) Jeanie tells James about her close encounter with Claudia, and James says he just wants to be alone with Jeanie — but she tells him, "I don't really do 'alone.'" They're just too different, they decide, so they go their separate ways. Jeanie thinks he's too stuck in his ways to adapt to her lifestyle... but then James shows up at her door in lederhosen, ready to climb the Alps.

They start off slow with a rock-climbing class, but they can't stop making goo-goo eyes at each other, and when the instructor asks them if they're ready to tie the knot (a rock-climbing knot, that is), James impulsively asks Jeanie to marry him. They're not getting any younger, he points out, and they can figure out the details later. She excitedly says yes — and they book a quickie wedding chapel in Vegas.

Will you stick with NBC's "Newlyweds"? Give the series premiere a grade in our poll, and then hit the comments to share your first impressions.



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