ABC Laughts It Up With 'Sons and Daughters"

Sons & Daughters, a new ABC series that's part of the network's drive for more risky comedies, premieres with back-to-back episodes Tuesday (9 p.m. ET/PT) and is a partly improvised show about a whacked-out extended suburban family.

Like Curb Your Enthusiasm, it's based only on detailed story outlines, with most of the dialogue made up on the fly.

But Fred Goss, who created the series with Nick Holly and also plays Cameron Walker, says, "It's not about industry people, and it's not a scenario where you go, 'Who the hell are these people and what planet are they from?' It's about real Midwestern families," he says. "We're trying to make a show that balances equal parts of heart to humor."

The show, from Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, began two years ago as The Weekend, an NBC pilot about three neighbors in a cul-de-sac. When that network passed, ABC snapped up the project and retooled it.

"We wanted a half-hour comedy that was not joke-driven in the traditional sense," Goss says. "You're laughing because you recognize the characters as people you're possibly related to yourself."