Heaton’s Dr. Carol Kenney , an empty nester whose husband is off finding himself, is having a second act after a career as a high school science teacher. The title can also be taken as a reference to Heaton, who comes to the show after a very successful nine-year run on “The Middle,” where she played basically the same garrulous, bossy, oversharing, amiably narcissistic character.

It’s a pretty decent act, and Heaton presents it with the same practiced, self-effacing charm. But the show around her isn’t nearly as funny. The creators, Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins — two of the writers of the film “Booksmart” — don’t do many standard punch lines. (It’s just as well — one prominent exception is when Carol tells her daughter, “The last time we were in a hospital together, I was screaming and you were naked.”) But their situations and characters, like the egotistic pretty-boy intern and the domineering but compassionate senior resident, are terminally familiar.

There’s also something retrograde, in the first two episodes, about the show’s portrayal of Carol. The age jokes are a given, but they’re accompanied by a tendency to celebrate her not for her medical ability but for the human touch that her age (and, implicitly, her gender) give her. In the pilot, she triumphs by being the best at delivering bad news. If you’re an older female doctor, apparently you specialize in empathy.

‘Perfect Harmony’