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Well, Tim Goodman liked it, and he may be considered by some the arbiter of good TV:

Miss Guided: Sitcom. Sneak preview 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. Regularly scheduled 8:30 p.m. Thursdays on ABC.

Although it's easy to approach any late entry in this television season of lost hope as somehow pointless or damaged, ABC's newest sitcom, "Miss Guided" is not only better than a lot of previous sitcoms on the network, it has the potential to remain a constant source of better-than-average laughs.

If that sounds thinly veiled, well, it is. So few sitcoms come ready-made out of the box these days. Comedy is infinitely more difficult to develop than drama and the first offerings can either be the worst effort in the batch of 22 or the best it will ever achieve.

Look no further than the best comedy now on television - NBC's "30 Rock," which premiered with a mostly unfunny, lackluster 22 minutes and then managed, after about four episodes, to hit its full creative stride.

"Miss Guided" was created by Caroline Williams (she's listed as having written one episode of "The Office") and the executive producer is Ashton Kutcher, so naturally all the attention will be on the latter. The show is also in the capable hands of Emmy-winning director Todd Holland. But Williams deserves credit for coming up with a simple premise that, with the right supporting actors - and they seem to be in place - might have some legs. "Miss Guided" centers on Becky Freeley (Judy Greer), a guidance counselor at Glen Ellen High School. It's a sort of triumphant return for the once-geeky Becky who also attended high school at Glen Ellen and felt all the shame and embarrassment of anyone would who never fit in, had bad braces and lost all of her hot-guy crushes to the homecoming queen.

But that's all in the past, right? Even though she's living at home with her mother and drives a not exactly fancy Cabriolet - which she's very proud of - good girl Becky is out to help all the high school kids with the patient, sage advice she never got.

There are a few kinks in the plan, of course. Becky finds herself attracted to the mechanic-turned-Spanish teacher, Tim (Kristoffer Polaha), who is very earnest but quite possibly the worst Spanish teacher this side of Peggy Hill ("King of the Hill"). Tim really wants to teach authentic Spanish, but hasn't quite mastered rudimentary words. Naturally, this is a gift to comedy writers.

Just as Becky begins her awkward push to win over Tim - shades of high school all around - she finds that the school has hired a new English teacher, Lisa Germain (Brooke Burns). Not surprisingly, Lisa was the homecoming queen at Glen Ellen when Becky was there. In fact, she was in all of Becky's classes, but Lisa doesn't remember much of her, except for the bad braces. As soon as they're introduced, it's clear that not much has changed at the old alma mater, and Becky feels like she's back in high school again.

Now, there's much to mine here - perhaps a season's worth, just on that alone. But no good comedy can sustain such a flimsy premise for long, no matter how good Greer is as Becky - and she's very good.

Where "Miss Guided" has potential is in the ensemble casting. Polaha is fine as the earnest, good-looking teacher who caught a break but isn't exactly smart enough to make it work. But Earl Billings as Principal Huffy is a treasure waiting to be plundered. He delivers blunt, declarative sentences and never crowds a scene before departing. For example, he stands out in front of the homecoming dance, boringly shouting "no groping, no grinding, no groping, no grinding" repeatedly. His deadpan delivery has a future. And "Saturday Night Live" alum Chris Parnell is superb as vice principal Bruce Terry, whose insecurities about his own stature and place at the school are the kind of fodder Parnell can really run with. Various teachers can also be written in and mature as this sitcom grows.

There's even room for cameos, as Kutcher attests in the second episode, airing two days after the pilot. He plays an earthy lothario - a substitute Spanish teacher who makes everyone swoon. (Jamie Lynn Spears, Britney's sister, is less impressive in her cameo on the same episode.)

The pilot of "Miss Guided" suffers a bit from being too cute with a device where the actors talk into the camera for narration and expository purposes. It's overused and detracts from actually telling the story. The second episode mostly corrects this, which is fortunate.

Is "Miss Guided" the next big sitcom hit? Who knows? There are far worse offerings and ABC, of all networks, has had a woeful time creating anything that's funny in a half-hour format. The good news is that both episodes mailed to critics were entertaining and there's enough evidence to suggest that even in this early gestation period, "Miss Guided" could really take off, creatively. Greer is wonderful. Parnell is always funny. Any good writer can make Principal Huffy a great running gag. It's a matter, mostly, of plotting.

"Miss Guided" could quickly run out of story lines - the Becky-loves-Tim angle can't last forever. But the students could be mined for material and plenty of teachers in the school could step up, a la "The Office," to flesh out the concept. Making comedy work is a tough business. At least in the first couple of stabs at it, "Miss Guided" seems to be poking the right bones to find the funny, and that deserves an encouraging smiley face.