“I like laugh shows,” explains Georgie Cooper (Montana Jordan) in the opening scene of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.” “At some shows you can hear people laughing, at some you can’t. “The Wonder Years” – no one is laughing. Is it funny? We’ll never know!”

Georgie makes this observation while watching “Frasier,” an ambient exposition that sets “Georgie & Mandy” in the mid-1990s, sandwiched in time between “Young Sheldon,” the prequel to “The Big Bang Theory.” Texas of the titular genius youth and “The Big Bang Theory” itself, in which Jim Parsons originated the role later played by Iain Armitage. That makes “Georgie & Mandy” a spin-off of a spin-off whose franchise is nearly two decades old and still growing since “The Big Bang Theory” debuted in 2007. Another satellite show is still in development.

But Georgie’s joke is also a wink through the fourth wall to the CBS sitcom’s studio audience. After making a name for himself with multi-camera comfort food like “Two and a Half Men,” co-creator and power producer Chuck Lorre has branched out into a more sophisticated single-camera style – and not just with “Young Sheldon.” “, but also later works like “The Kominsky Method” on Netflix and “Bookie” on Max. With “Georgie & Mandy” Lorre (along with co-creators Steven Molaro and Steve Holland, both of “Young Sheldon”) is both for him as well as being back in the comfort zone for its audience, a change that the show makes clear in less than a minute of screen time.

“Georgie & Mandy” even brings back other “Young Sheldon” cast members to translate their appeal into this new, or rather, old rhythm. In the final episodes of Young Sheldon, Georgie fell in love with Mandy (Emily Osment), a local news anchor twelve years her senior, and impregnated her. In “Georgie & Mandy,” the couple and their newborn move in with Mandy’s parents, the judgmental Audrey (Rachel Bay Jones) and car dealer Jim (Will Sasso), who takes Georgie under his wing and gives him a job. We know from Jerry O’Connell’s performances as Georgie on The Big Bang Theory that he will be successful in this industry, but right now he and Mandy are seriously strapped for cash. Mandy’s brother Connor (Dougie Baldwin), a music obsessive, is a socially awkward nerd whose presence awakens Sheldon and his future roommates in search of additional commonality across franchises.

Although Mandy’s family is the focus, the rest of the Coopers are still there, allowing Zoe Perry, Annie Potts and Raegan Revord to reprise the roles of Georgie’s mother, Meemaw and sister. (Sheldon has already given up graduate studies at CalTech in Pasadena.) Without a physics genius at its center, “Georgie & Mandy” has an even more folksy feel, grounded in the struggles of young working parents to stay afloat. Some storylines, such as the grief over the recent loss of Georgie’s father to a heart attack, are carried over from “Young Sheldon”; others, like the failed attempt to rent an apartment right next to a train track, relate more to the new show.

“Georgie & Mandy” is just beginning to develop its own identity within the universe (pun very much intended) that began with “The Big Bang Theory.” Critics were only given two episodes in advance, so it’s difficult to make a final judgment on the success of this effort. But Jones has a pleasantly snarky demeanor, and Jordan and Osment have a chemistry sweet enough to make you forget the age difference until someone points out that Georgie isn’t technically old enough to drink. In the end credits sequence, the two dance the tango through an atmospherically lit kitchen, their infatuation highlighting their simple surroundings.

For viewers, “Georgie & Mandy” is a double dose of nostalgia. It’s an extension of Cooper family lore, a fertile seed planted by Jim Parsons’ first “Bazinga!” But it’s also a throwback to the “Roseanne” school of lowbrow, working-class family sitcoms, with some modern add-ins like a subplot about Georgie’s fears. “Georgie & Mandy” prides itself on being a “laughter show,” even if it has fallen out of fashion.

The first episode of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage airs October 17 at 8:00 pm ET on CBS and streams on Paramount+, with new episodes airing weekly on Thursdays.