By Kelly Rausch

“Men of a Certain Age” is a really good show.

There. That’s it. Column’s done.

I’ve meant to write about this new TNT drama since it premiered in early December, but it’s so good and I enjoy it so much that I don’t even know how to begin writing about it.

I’m not a television critic. I never took any film, television or theatre classes in college. I’m not qualified to talk about “artistic vision” or technical credits. I just know what I like and especially what I think is ridiculous and terrible and worthy of becoming a guilty pleasure. I like to snark on bad T.V. It’s easy and maybe a little lazy.

Much harder is telling you why a quality show is worthy of being watched. “Men of a Certain Age” is a great show all around., and I should at least try to elaborate.

To start, it’s very well written. The show centers around three male friends who’ve known each other since college and are now on their way into middle-age. The dialogue between them is very real. The lighthearted ribbing and the sincere confessions and honest discussion of feelings and fears that never veer off into sentimentality all come off as being very realistic.

The series three stars (Ray Romano, who also co-created and executive produces the show, Andre Braugher and Scott Bakula) have a natural rapport with each other that makes the viewer believe these men not only genuinely like each other, but that they really are friends.

The obvious stereotype of men approaching middle age involves impulsive sports car purchases, hair plugs and divorces from frumpy wives in favor of much younger girlfriends. “Men” gives us a more realistic depiction complete with financial worries, pining for your ex-wife shortly after the divorce that you didn’t want, raising kids, and, at the other end of the spectrum, realizing that bachelorhood in one’s 40’s is infinitely more depressing than it was in your 20’s.

The themes this show explores are universal, so while the title implies a specific demographic, everyone can identify. I’m a 31-year-old woman, but for an hour every week I feel like 49-year-old man (that’s a good thing, I think).

Just when you think the show is going to take you to that kind of warm, touchy-feely after-school special place, it saves itself with humor. After one of the men collapses during a hike and his life seems to hang in the balance, his friend causes him additional injury in a minor traffic accident after checking out an attractive female while driving him to the hospital.

When Andre Braugher’s character tells his wife he’s quitting his job because it’s crushing his soul, she lovingly tells him she understands and that they’ll figure out a way to survive without his income. Just when you think you’ve seen this scene before (lots of movies and television shows have given us the character who suddenly quits his or her job to follow their hearts despite the economic disaster it means for themselves), his wife quickly recants her supportive statements and tells him flat-out that she loves him but they simply cannot survive financially if he were to up and quit his job.

It was a refreshingly realistic moment. Most of us hate our jobs, but we can’t all pull a Jerry Maguire and walk out one day. We’ve got bills to pay, and it sucks, so we keep going to work. I appreciate not having idealized sunshine thrown in my face. Life is all about doing things we don’t want to do and trying to find bits of happiness mixed in with all the monotony and misery. “Men of a Certain Age” is all about these struggles and the friendships that get you through.

The supporting cast of characters and the actors who play them are fantastic. Lisa Gay Hamilton, who plays Braugher’s wife, is spot-on. Romano’s party store employees are fun, trying to relate to the much older Romano, cracking jokes at his outdated musical taste and commiserating over failed romantic relationships.

“Men of a Certain Age” airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on TNT. Though there are only a few episodes left in this first series, it’s been picked up for a second season.