PASADENA, Calif. -- How can you not love a show called "Love Monkey"? Doesn't the title at least make you curious? And if you liked Tom Cavanagh as the star of NBC's "Ed," wouldn't it be worth checking out his new series, easily the best hourlong midseason show?

	Damian Dovarganes, Associated Press Tom Cavanagh is off to a slow start with "Love Monkey." Click photo for larger image.

And yet, despite mostly positive reviews, CBS newcomer "Love Monkey" (10 p.m. Tuesday) got off to a slow start this week, coming in third in its time slot and second in key demos.

"35 million people watched 'American Idol' [Tuesday] and you look at 9 million people for us," said "Love Monkey" creator Michael Rauch. "I look at that and I'm crushed, but if you look at the actual demographic, we did well. Hopefully the audience response will develop over time. My hope is it's a show about people and about relationships that an audience responds to."

Series star Cavanagh joked about what could have happened when he flew to Los Angeles this week to meet the press.

"We were in the air while the show was airing. We kind of thought we might land and they would be like, 'You guys don't have to show up,'" Cavanagh joked. "There's no CBS car [for us]. 'Thanks for coming, you can head back on Jet Blue.'"

CBS Corp. president Leslie Moonves said he had hoped "Love Monkey" would do better, but he was happy with its demographic number because it improved on the network's usual performance in the time period.

CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler pledged patience with the comedic drama, which follows the work and dating life of thirtysomething New York music executive Tom Farrell (Cavanagh). It's based on a 2003 novel of the same name by Kyle Smith.

"I think the momentum of that show is going to be created off word of mouth," Tassler said. "The show skews a little young, and I think younger audiences tend to look at promotion and hype and take it with a grain of salt and want to hear it from their friends and on the Internet."

CBS has given the show a healthy promotional push, but it's unfortunate that CBS ordered only eight episodes. That doesn't give "Love Monkey" much time to prove itself. The show won't get younger-skewing lead-in support until late February when "The Amazing Race" returns, and by then "Love Monkey" will have almost completed its run. And with so many procedural shows on its schedule, the CBS audience may not immediately take to a character-driven series. Another speed bump: The Jan. 31 episode will be pre-empted due to coverage of the State of the Union address.

Suffice it to say, "Love Monkey" has a lot of hurdles in its way, which is why I'm making a plea for viewers to give the show a try. The series will be especially worthwhile for fans of up and coming music acts. In this week's premiere, Tom signed a new recording artist played by 17-year-old newcomer Teddy Geiger. Other rising acts featured in future episodes include Latin alternative band SiHSe and Eugene.

Nic Harcourt, the show's music supervisor and a respected deejay at KCRW-FM in Los Angeles, said it's not just another case of a TV show looking to release a soundtrack.

"The show is about music. It's not just putting a band in a bar. It's part of what's going on," Harcourt said. "People listen to music so differently now than they did five, 10 years ago. The iPod definitely revolutionized the way people listen to music, and I think that's reflected in the music that's in the show."

Series creator Rauch said the musical montage at the end of the premiere episode, featuring Geiger's "Love Is a Marathon," was one of the best moments in the episode.

"There's no dialogue whatsoever, and that to me, emotionally, is my favorite part of the episode," he said. "The music informs the emotion of that sequence in a way nothing I write could do as well."

In addition to trying to use music in a natural way that doesn't feel like a marketing gimmick, "Love Monkey" also features a grittier, less glamorous New York, filming more in the East Village and Brooklyn than around Central Park West or Fifth Avenue.

Regardless of the setting or sound, "Love Monkey" is foremost about characters growing up.

"As a guy in my 30s, it's a time you're stuck in this place of, I still want to be a single guy and date and hang out with my buddies, but maybe it's time to settle down and stick with a career, find the partner you want to be with and start a family," Rauch said. "It's kind of topical that that age is getting later and later. For my parents' generation, it used to be mid-20s, and now it's mid-30s."

Relationship drama, new music, good humor and a talented ensemble cast that includes Jason Priestley ("Beverly Hills, 90210") and Judy Greer ("Arrested Development") make this show entertaining and worth your support.

'Voice of God' lives

Whether or not Katie Couric jumps from NBC to CBS to host "The CBS Evening News," newly installed CBS News president Sean McManus said he's focusing his search on finding a primary anchor, singular. It appears the network is no longer interested in an anchor team, perhaps because ABC went that route in replacing Peter Jennings.

"I think that having one person as your primary anchor is the way to go," McManus said. "I give ABC a lot of credit for trying a lot of new things. ... Anyone who says that the way the evening news has been produced and presented for the last 25 years is the way to go probably shouldn't be running a news division. Having said that, I don't think there's any reason to tear up the format and break the mold."

Moonves had been pushing an anchor team format a year ago, but McManus said he and Moonves agree on the need for a single anchor "who can be the face of CBS News hopefully for the next decade and a half," including during times of national crisis like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina.

Fixing CBS's 'Race'

Fans seemed to universally loathe CBS's mostly landlocked family edition of "The Amazing Race," and CBS's Tassler acknowledged it was a failed experiment.

"We tried something; I don't think we were particularly successful with it, but the interesting thing is sometimes you get criticized for not experimenting with a form," she said. "In this case we did. Our producers wanted to try something different, and we supported that."

"Race" host Phil Keoghan is also happy to get back to the traditional continent-hopping teams-of-two format when the show returns at the end of next month.

"For me the race is really about faces and places," he said, "and I felt if you take the places away, you do lose something."

UPN's quality shows

Ali LeRoi, executive producer of UPN's "Everybody Hates Chris" (8 p.m. Thursday, WNPA), said his formula for success is simple.

"We don't pander, we don't think the audience is stupid," he said. "We're not trying dazzle them with BS, we don't try to make it quick and flashy, 'Look, we've got a big wide-angle lens! The kid's making a face!' We just try to tell fairly informed, genuine stories."

"Chris," based loosely on the childhood of comedian Chris Rock, premiered with critical plaudits and promotional hype aplenty, but LeRoi didn't take the raucous launch too seriously.

"We're stellar compared to all of the crap that's out there," he said. "There's so much bad stuff, it's like, 'That's not bad' and then 'That's not bad' turns into, 'Hey, it's amazing!'"

Part of the success comes in casting guileless children in leading roles.

"They don't have Hollywood polish," LeRoi said, turning to young star Tyler James Williams. "He's not portraying an awkward 13-year-old kid. Look at him, he is an awkward 13-year-old kid."

"What you see is what you get," replied Williams, who also said he has a new name when he walks down the street: "That Kid From 'Everybody Hates Chris.'"

"Chris" got off to a strong ratings start but declined to a more realistic UPN ratings level in the weeks since.

UPN Entertainment president Dawn Ostroff expressed satisfaction for "Chris's" ratings and for quality drama "Veronica Mars," but she declined to say whether either will be back next season.

New reality show "Get This Party Started" premieres Feb. 7, and "America's Next Top Model" returns for a new cycle on March 8. Ostroff announced the pickup of two more editions of "Top Model" for the 2006-07 TV season. An "Odd Couple"-like reality show starring 'Nsync bandmates Lance Bass and Joey Fatone, tentatively titled "Out of Sync," is in development.

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