“He’s 19 and he dropped out of high school. How smooth can it be?” That’s how executive producer Chuck Lorre describes the domestic life of Georgie Cooper (Montana Jordan) and his 31- year-old bride, Mandy (Emily Osment), the main characters of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, CBS’s new comedy about the older brother of Young Sheldon’s boy genius (Iain Armitage). As Jordan teases, “It’s going to be very hectic.”
“It’s a bumpy ride, but the bumps are comedy if handled correctly,” Lorre echoes. “There’s dramatic moments as well, because they will face inevitable obstacles to staying together.” One of those hurdles? Learning how to coexist with the McAllisters, Mandy’s dad Jim (Will Sasso), and mom Audrey (Rachel Bay Jones).
(Credit: Bill Inoshita / 2023 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. )
“There’s a lot of things that come with being a young parent and with Mandy’s mom not being the easiest to deal with,” Jordan clarifies. Poor relationship role models are just part of the challenges the duo will face as they parent their young daughter CeeCee. Sasso believes that putting both families under one roof is “fodder for a great sitcom, especially a multi-camera sitcom.”
Unlike Young Sheldon, the series will film in front of a studio audience (on the same soundstage as The Big Bang Theory, no less). Viewers will see lots of familiar faces: The premiere welcomes back Zoe Perry and Annie Potts, reprising their roles as Georgie’s mother and grandmother, Mary and Meemaw. Later episodes will feature Raegan Revord as his sister Missy.
“We’re going to see a slightly different Missy,” exec producer Steve Holland teases. “She’s gone through the loss of her dad and she’s acting out. She’s [becoming] rebellious.” That’s one of the challenges Georgie will be dealing with as the now-eldest man in the family. “He’s trying to balance being a husband and a father and also being a caretaker to his sister, who’s having some struggles,” Holland says.
Still, it’s an exciting new chapter: Georgie will continue his tire shop gig, and Osment is eager to delve deeper into Mandy’s juggling of her career ambitions with motherhood. “It’ll be hard for them to go too long without giving her another passion,” she says. “I think that’s something we should definitely look into…career changes, going back to school, whatever it could be.”
Life with this version of the Cooper family is just getting started — so what might that mean for the longevity of the ever-expanding Big Bang universe? While Lorre admits that “there’s no master plan,” the stories speak for themselves: Families can be messy, but they’re always entertaining.
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, Series Premiere Thursday, October 17, 8/7c, CBS
