For a new TV comedy, this is a rarity: "Rules of Engagement" finds itself in a no-complaint mode.

It has an ideal night (Monday), time (8:30 p.m.), lead-in ("Two and a Half Men") and lead-out ("CSI: Miami"). Its stars even went to the Super Bowl, just so the cameras could catch them occasionally.

"The great thing is we have no excuses," said Oliver Hudson, one of the stars. "Every show has something to complain about, but we don't."

It has no obstacles to success.

"And no one's watching 'Heroes' and '24,' thank God," said David Spade, one of the stars.

OK, there's that obstacle: "Rules" is crashing against two hot, serialized shows.

Still, a comfy network has nurtured it. CBS says "Rules" will be its only new, scripted show for the second half of the season.

The story focuses on two neighboring couples: One is older and skeptical, the other newer and optimistic. Mixed in is one single guy, an outright cynic.

After seeing the pilot, CBS decided to keep only the older couple. Patrick Warburton, 42, is best known as Puddy on "Seinfeld." Megyn Price, 35, co-starred in "Grounded For Life." They stayed with everyone else recast.

The cynic is now played by David Spade, 42, who has been putting on that facade since he was a teenager.

"All my nerdy, fun things, I had to scrap so I could try to be cool," he said.

And the young lovers are played by Hudson, 30, and Bianca Kajlich, 29, who seem to fit their roles easily.

"I am a little less neurotic than (the character) is," Hudson said. "I am a little more laid back and tend to let things flow past me. He's always trying to make things happen."

Still, Hudson shares the character's romantic optimism — despite the evidence around him.

"I obviously grew up in a family where marriage didn't really work," he said.

His parents, actress Goldie Hawn and musician-actor Bill Hudson, divorced early. His dad then married and divorced actress Cindy Williams.

The stability has come from Hawn and Kurt Russell, who have never formally married.

"It's been a beautiful thing for 22 years," Hudson said.

So he has jumped in. After being engaged for more than two years, Hudson and Erinn Bartlett, an actress he met in acting class, married in June. Soon afterward, he was cast for the second "Rules" pilot.

He already had the role when Kajlich, his friend from their "Dawson's Creek" days, was cast opposite him.

"I didn't know that Oliver had been cast," she said. "(I) walked in the room and it was a huge surprise to see him there. But it's so comforting."

While working on their previous show, she had told him about her romance with soccer star Landon Donovan. As "Rules" began, she and Donovan were preparing for their Dec. 31 wedding.

"It's weird, because some of the fights (on the show) actually did mimic real-life stuff that was going on at the time," she said.

And the older couple? Warburton is married, with four kids and a droll outlook, similar to his character.

"My life is trash cans and dog crap," he said.

Price's life has been more complicated.

Divorced from "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence, she got a phone call one day from a guy she'd known since they were 15 in Oklahoma. It turned out that he is muscular and handsome ("I always call him the nonalcoholic Colin Farrell") and an emergency-room doctor.

Now they're married and, she says, noncynical. Their life would be a very different TV show.