Five friends move into the childhood home of Samir (Malik Elassal) because ... well, you know what rent costs in New York, right? His parents have left for reasons that aren't entirely clear, but the five now have this small Queens house to themselves, where they stage their conquest of adulthood, or try to. Billie (Lucy Freyer) still thinks the greatest years of her life were in high school; Issa (Amita Rao) is unapologetic about everything, even though she has some stuff to apologize for; Anton (Owen Thiele) makes friends with everyone he meets (including, unbeknown to him, the local "stabber"); and Paul (Jack Innanen) is the easygoing charmer who bonds with Samir over video games and beer.

This FX sitcom in eight episodes was created (and mostly written) by Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold (a 2014 Jericho High School valedictorian) of "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon."

Back in the last century, "Friends" (1994-2004) copied "Living Single" (1993-98) but because "Friends" was the bigger hit — hello, by far — then it in turn was copied by "How I Met Your Mother," "Will & Grace," "Friends from College," Happy Endings," "New Girl," "Girls" and probably half a dozen other shows my Google search has overlooked. There's certainly no shame in copying — that's the TV way — plus each of these had their own personality. "Happy Endings" and "New Girl" even tried to disguise their larceny by setting themselves in cities other than New York, but that fooled no one. Still "Friends" knockoffs, always "Friends" knockoffs.

And now, ta-da, "Adults." Like "Friends," the characters here occupy that liminal adult space between the ages of (about) 22 and 25 — for this subgenre, any younger or older would be weird — while their preoccupations remain, as ever, sex, love, romance, hookups, living arrangements and (fitfully) jobs. Like the New York of "Friends" et al, New York (or in this case Queens) is more notional than actual. The big town is out there somewhere, its energy and chaos only implied rather than experienced. That it gets Queens — or whatever part of Queens this is supposed to be in — completely wrong should be self-evident or inevitable. "Adults" was shot in Toronto, which may explain why.

The five friends here have the requisite energy and boundless optimism that exists nowhere else except on TV. Their lives are uncomplicated by the usual complexities of life in New York among the young and impecunious — housing, rent, safety, subways, health care and food. These lives revolve around "situations," like a trip to the hospital, a first dinner party, or the death of a therapist, which is why this is technically a "situation comedy" absent the laugh track. Parents, the real adults, are nowhere to be seen, or heard from. They too are notional — or at least irrelevant to the situations that unfold.

All of this might be enough to make you hate "Adults," and maybe you will, but the surprise is that it works as well as it does — and it usually does work well. The reason is the hugely appealing cast, and the writing, which is sharp and punchy. "Adults" can also be raunchy, but the raunch typically lands as a surprise and sometimes an unwelcome one — including the very first scene of the series. "Adults" on FX probably figured it needed to push beyond "Girls" on HBO, except on "Girls" it was organic, here formulaic.

Another "Friends" (or "Girls"?) knockoff with a likable cast and some sharp writing.