It's probably just an old habit picked up from our days as school kids, but we Americans by and large prefer fun, brainless entertainment in the summer. I can respect that sentiment and I'm glad that it has finally started to translate to television. Networks haven't put as much energy into summer series as they probably should have, but they're starting to reverse that trend. Apparently someone finally told a few key TV executives that people still like to watch new shows between June and September. To that end, Fox has decided to take a chance on a nothing-but-fun cop show called The Good Guys. Tonight the pilot aired and the regular season is set to begin on June 7th. If the remaining 19 episodes of the series can keep pace with the pilot, The Good Guys will be a welcome midweek distraction during the hot months.

The Good Guys is a self-aware buddy cop story that makes no real attempt to diverge from the cliches of the genre, which serves it well more often than it ought to. Colin Hanks plays Detective Jack Bailey, a young cop who has managed to piss off the entire Houston police department by being a straight-laced perfectionist. His career is stalled in Routine Investigations, the most boring job north of traffic control. He's partnered with Dan Stark, a boozy has-been played by Bradley Whitford. Dan has only managed to keep his badge through his years of recklessness and intoxication because he saved the Governor's son back in his glory days with fellow shaggy cop Frank. Now Frank is an elementary school art teacher thanks to a nervous breakdown and Dan longs for the action-packed lifestyle he lived in his Starsky and Hutch years.

Thankfully, The Good Guys doesn't attempt to get that much mileage out of the snob/slob relationship between Jack and Dan. The whole point of this show is to get to the gun fights, car chases and banter, so Jack ends up jumping into the action with little prompting. This actually makes sense for his character, seeing as his by-the-book approach has done nothing but land him in a beige professional purgatory. Jack and Dan balance each other out in ways that are meant solely to entertain. Neither complains or goofs around so much that he becomes annoying.

The pilot episode revolves around a series of coincidences that link the theft of a humidifier to a multimillion-dollar double-cross within a South American drug cartel. Nia Vardalos guest stars as the victim of the humidifier theft, which makes this episode the first interesting thing she's done since My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and the plot even comes complete with a goofy informant and a sympathetic assassin. By the time the requisite car chase climax comes around, Jack and Dan have even gotten their hands on a hotrod that would have been the bee's knees back in 1988. A less respectable show would have inexplicably put them in a brand new sports car, but The Good Guys isn't trying to be hip or fresh. It's a throwback that's just smart enough to not be pretentious.

TV World may add The Good Guys to our summer coverage roster if the follow-up episodes in June are as fun as the pilot. We'd definitely like to hear from you readers about what you thought of the preview.