1. Pilot

Three friends from Los Angeles named Melanie ( Valerie Bertinelli ), Joy ( Jane Leeves ) and Victoria ( Wendie Malick ) board a plane to Paris only to run into Melanie's estranged husband Anders, who is newly-engaged to another woman. Just as Melanie is devastated, a lightning storm causes the plane to make an emergency landing in Cleveland, Ohio. As the three women arrive in a bar where men immediately start hitting on them, they immediately begin to like the strange, unpretentious city and talk to three particular suitors. The next morning, after going sightseeing with one of the men, Hank ( John Schneider ), and sleeping with him, Melanie immediately decides she wants to move to Cleveland, much to Joy's and Victoria's concerns as they are supposed to fly out to Paris the following morning.

Melanie also rents a cottage on a month-to-month lease, but along with the cottage comes a caretaker named Elka ( Betty White ), a sassy elderly woman who takes an immediate dislike to Joy and criticizes Victoria's acting career. Just as Hank and Melanie go on another date, an even more concerned Joy and Victoria research him online and find out that he is married, and interrupt his date with Melanie to call him out on his behaviour before comforting her. Melanie, although upset about what Hank did to her, still wants to stay in Cleveland to reinvent herself, and is happy to let Joy and Victoria go off to Paris.

However, they decide to stay in the city with Melanie for two weeks instead, unhappy with the state of their careers. They happily decide to go back to the bar to pick up guys again, Elka immediately volunteering to drive them there.