Earlier this fall, I took a look at the new sitcoms coming out and concluded that none of them looked like hits. I'm happy to say that I was wrong. Samantha Who? is smart and funny, and enjoying good ratings thanks to its Dancing With the Stars lead-in.

Christina Applegate was made for screwball comedy, and this is a much better vehicle for her than 1998’s Jesse. She plays Samantha Newly, a woman trying to remember (and repair) her past after a car accident left her with amnesia. As she is discovering, she wasn’t a very nice person. She has things to rediscover about her relationships with others (her parents, her boyfriend, and two best friends). She also has to re-learn some practical skills, like how to drive and not to put metal in the microwave. These present endless opportunities for amusement.

Like many good comedies, the supporting characters really make the show. Jean Smart leads the pack as Samantha’s mom, who uses her daughter’s amnesia as an opportunity to fix the rift in their relationship. Not by being supportive and caring, because that would be boring. Instead, she uses the fact that Sam can’t remember her childhood as a prime opportunity for manipulation. She adds fictional events and omits her less favorite moments to hilarious effect. Meanwhile, Sam's not always reliable recovered memories also bring the funny, like the time she thought she was adopted, but it turned out she was Annie in the school play. There aren’t a whole lot of sentimental moments on this show, but most of them involve Kevin Dunn as Sam’s dad. They drifted apart once she hit her teens and are just reconnecting now.

Sam’s two best friends are extensions of her "good" and "bad" selves. Crash’s Jennifer Esposito is the self-centered Andrea, and Melissa McCarthy, who has excellent best friend credentials from her stint as Sookie on Gilmore Girls, plays super nice, dog-obsessed, slightly dorky Dena. Barry Watson rounds out the cast as Sam’s boyfriend Todd, who inexplicably stuck around mean, pre-accident Sam, but seems like a much better nice-guy match for new, nice Sam.

Now that Dancing With the Stars has concluded its season, Samantha Who? has had a ratings drop. It is now paired with the decent, but slightly blah, pregnancy comedy Notes from the Underbelly. Nevertheless, ABC has ordered a full season. Whether they will actually get a full season is iffy and dependent on the WGA. The WGA strike is a good news-bad news scenario for new shows like Samantha Who? with decent but not stellar ratings. The bad news is that viewers may not be attached enough to miss them when they are off the air; but the good news is that the development season for new shows might be shorter or non-existent, so many of this season’s new shows are more likely to get a second season pickup.

If you haven’t had a chance to see Samantha Who? yet, you can catch up with old episodes on ABC’s website. New episodes air on Mondays at 9:00. Now that Heroes has had its mini-season finale, this would be a good time to tune in.

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Amy Kane spends as much quality time with her television as possible, when she's not busy at her day job as a cube dweller.

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