IT'S GOT AN amazing cast, made up of actors whose experience stretches from stage to screen.

It's got a rich array of characters, with foibles real enough to be drawn from real life.

And on top of that, it's riding a wave of popularity from the surprise hit movie of the year.

But for all that, "My Big Fat Greek Life" isn't the treat many of us hoped it would be.

To be fair, expectations were more than a little high for this CBS sitcom, now airing at 8 p.m. on Sundays.

The series is created by Nia Vardalos, the fresh and funny comedian who drew upon her own upbringing to write and star in the hilarious feature film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding."

Those of us who loved the movie for its convincing doses of humor drawn from real life were excited at the prospect of seeing it return each week as a sitcom.

And certainly, CBS' "My Big Fat Greek Life" is no stinker, no out-and-out bomb.

But it's also no "Big Fat Greek Wedding," and that really shouldn't come as a surprise.

In the movie, the power and drive of the comedy comes from moving Nia, a young, ugly duckling of sorts, away from her parents and her Greek background toward a relationship with "an English."

The differences between the two cultures, and the silly things believed by both, provide a rich well of jokes, interchanges and hilarity throughout the film.

In a two-hour film, where you get more than 100 minutes to carefully move a central character through a funny set of circumstances, it's easier to take an audience on a journey they'll find sincerely funny.

When you've got to crank out 18 or 20 episodes of a 24-minute sitcom, each week it becomes immeasurably more difficult to both tell a story and mine rich comic gems along the way.

If you boil them down to their essence, most situation comedies don't exist to tell a story.

The best of them, like "Cheers," "M*A*S*H" and "All in the Family," simply draw interesting, usually somewhat outrageous characters and then let them vamp each week around a thin plot line.