'Good Twists' Coming for Julie Larson's 'Chelsea' Series

In tonight's episode of Are Your There, Chelsea—titled "Foodle"—Chelsea (Laura Prepon) "falls under the culinary spell of her new boyfriend and loses touch with her friends ... and her figure."

the lead writer and one of the television show's co-creators, has fallen on some good times in the comedy-writing business, and she hasn't lost touch with friends in her hometown—in fact, it's just the opposite.

Since the show debuted Jan. 11 on NBC, Julie's Facebook page has exploded along with the show's feedback on social media.

"I’ve gotten friended by about 200 people from Geneva High School, and I’m glad about that," she said by phone Wednesday. "It’s like 'WOW, you won the lottery' sort of thing."

The show is at 7:30 p.m. on NBC, by the way, so please tune in later tonight.

Last week's episode, "Fired," was one of Julie's favorites of the pilot series, partly because her good friend Ryan Stiles (Whose Line Is It, Anyway?) made a guest appearance as the quasi-evil bar owner.

"Ryan was really great as that character, and the story kind of brings the bar together in a good way," Julie said. "The girl who plays Nikki—I don’t many people who can act that bitchy but be kind of likable in a weird way. She just kind of hit it off with Laura. It's like (we've got) the big friendly dog and the little yappy puppy ... This is, like, classic comedy."

Another very funny character is Dee Dee, played by Lauren Lapkus of Evanston and of Second City. You can read a bio of Lapkus here.

Julie said her very favorite installment is the final of the 12-part mid-season replacement series, which I probably should mention is loosely based on the life and books of Chelsea Handler.

"It's got a really good twist at the end," Julie promises. "I feel it goes better as the weeks go by. You have to get to know the characters and situations that make that person or environment what it is."

It has been fun to watch the characters develop over the weeks. The series is a little like Cheers on Viagra—the main characters are bartenders and wait staff who happen to have a lot of sex, or at least talk about it a lot.

We're into Episode No. 10 tonight, and there's a re-run scheduled in there somewhere, so Julie wasn't exactly sure when the series ends or even whether it will be picked up next season.

Whether it is or not, Julie won't be short of work.

Right now, she's been called in to oversee the writing of a pilot for TBS called Graveyard. The setting is Chicago and the premise is that—maybe in part because of a down economy—a lot of really smart, interesting, eclectic people end up finding work in a graveyard shift, making copies.

"Its two writers haven’t done a pilot before. So they wanted somebody who’s done it, and wanted me to help them. So I said, 'Sure,' " she said.

Julie has earned every bit of her success. And as she's said to her Geneva Facebook friends, it's not exactly like it's come along overnight.

"I try to explain that, you know, I've been in comedy 17 years—working for free a lot of that time and doing at least a show every week—so there was a really big front-end investment there."