It's an imperfect but charming show — a hair this side of inspired, a shade too careful, not exactly original, but with a synergy between the writing, acting and production that patches the holes and keeps it buoyant.

The series will catch flak for occupying nearly the same real estate as "Sex and the City" and charting some of the same thematic territory. (Sex, the city.) Jake even shares his profession with Kim Cattrall's Samantha. It bears traces of "Seinfeld" as well, but, despite a bit of real-world name dropping and an eye to the accouterments of upscale urban modern life, it's not as pop-sociological as either of those shows — it's less interested in cultural minutiae and social ritual than in classic sitcom tropes and tensions. (A girl Jake likes shows up at the door while another girl he doesn't like so much is in his room, etc.) It's well done enough that when you cringe, you cringe for the characters, not for the actors.

Though the swinging bachelor was a staple of film and TV in the ring-a-ding '60s, nowadays it is a trickier proposition to pull off, women having sometime ago liberated themselves from the status of accessories, the fantastic visions of Maxim and Stuff notwithstanding. Jake must be occasionally denied, or make choices obviously counter to his best interests, to not seem merely obnoxious. We can see he's accustomed to getting what he wants — if not always, more often and more easily than most of us — but if he gets what he wants, he does not always get what he needs. Still, each episode shows him taking a tentative step toward maturity — "Jake in Progress" is the title, note — though these steps will not add up to anything much.

Stamos handles himself with just the right air of harried aplomb. Once chosen by the august People magazine one of the 50 most beautiful humans on Earth, Stamos is holding up quite nicely in young middle age, boyishness permanently embedded in his post-40 features. (The character he plays is somewhat younger and even at that in denial about his age.) At the same time, his looks are out of the ordinary: With his great swooping waves of black hair, thick, animated eyebrows and large,

flaring nostrils, he has something of the aspect of a man with the head of a puppy. I mean this in a good way.

Though he is helplessly vain — his business partner played by Wendie Malick comments on his "pretty-girl sense of entitlement" — and so competitive he compares his cholesterol count with a rival publicist, we know he's all right deep down because his palms sweat when he's nervous and also, he's loyal to his less-fabulous goofball friends.

One is his portly college roommate, a dentist (Ian Gomez from "The Drew Carey Show" and "Felicity"), the other an angry, needy magician-slash-performance artist (Jeff Goldblum sound-alike Rick Hoffman).