If you’ve been watching and enjoying ABC Family’s recent more adult-oriented sitcoms Roommates and Sophie, I’ve got some bad, sad news for you. Just five episodes in, the generally teen-oriented network has abruptly decided that both Monday-night comedies simply aren’t hacking it when it comes to ratings.

As a result, the Canadian series Sophie is gone as of its last episode, “Dr. Who?,” the fifth of 13, which premiered on April 20. Interestingly, Canada’s CBC network canceled the show at the end of March after two seasons for an identical reason — extremely poor ratings.

The American original comedy Roommates will fare a bit better, however. Instead of yanking it immediately, ABC Family has opted for a shorter-than-planned season by burning off the remaining eight of 13 installments during two four-episode mini-marathons. The two-hour blocks will air on Monday, April 27 and May 4, from 9pm to 11pm ET.

I watched the first two episodes of both series, and while I enjoyed Sophie more than Roommates, neither comedy was funny or interesting enough to make me a fan or even a regular casual viewer. So, I totally understand why they didn’t catch on with audiences, especially those who prefer more typical ABC Family programming.

Last night, ABC Family premiered one of its latest original comedies called Roommates. The series is sort of reminiscent of NBC’s much-loved hit Friends, but with a 20-something, post-college cast of five regulars that includes actor Tyler Francavilla.

Actress Tamera Mowry, who plays Hope, discussed the series in a previous interview, and her co-star Francavilla confirms what she said: viewers who watch Roommates can look forward to a fun comedy that features actors and actresses who took an instant liking to one another, and the camaraderie shows.

But, wait. The sitcom isn’t a Friends carbon copy? There’s no on-set drama providing constant rumor fodder for denizens of the entertainment Internets? Can Roommates actually make that work? Read on to find out why Francavilla thinks so, plus more.

What made you originally want to be a part of the show Roommates?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Well, I have to say the character of Mark is a lot like myself in a lot of ways, which was very appealing to me to begin with. It’s actually kind of difficult to play a role that’s a lot like yourself. I found that challenging and also very fun.

Mark is a struggling actor living in New York and he’s sort of a hopeless romantic and has been pining after the same girl since high school. I found I had a lot in common with Mark and, obviously, being an actor and having been working at it for quite a long time and growing up in New York and everything, there was a lot of that character that I identified with and a bit of the hopeless romantic part as well.

How did you get the role? Did you have to audition for it?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Yes, I did, and it was kind of one of those perfect timing situations. I’ve been working as an actor for a long time and I’ve had my ups and downs and had times where I was working a bit, and other times where I wasn’t really working much at all. This part came along, and I read the script and I just looked at it and I said, “I know who this guy is.”

Like I said earlier, he’s so much like myself that it wasn’t that difficult to decipher who this guy was for me. It was just one of those situations where I went in just thinking whether or not they like me, I know that this is a part that I could do and I’m going to do my best to show them that I could be this guy.

I went in, and from what they’ve told me, they were on board with me pretty early on. So, I felt really fortunate that it was just kind of a kismet situation. I was really looking for something like this to come along, and it came at the perfect time.

Was there instant cast chemistry when everyone first came together or did it take a bit of time to develop?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: No, I have to say it was pretty instantaneous. We all bonded immediately, and I feel like that was the— One of the best parts about this job and playing this role is that I made some of the best friends I’ve had working on this show. We all immediately got along so well and started hanging out a lot.

I feel like it really comes through in the work when you see the show and as the show develops. I think you really start to see our friendships forming, and the bonds that we created, I think really come through. And I think [that] is going to be a big, big part of why the show will be successful, if it is.

What’s a typical day of filming like?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Non-stop laughter, pretty much. Like I said, we’re such good friends that there [were] so many days where I would say to myself, “I can’t believe that this is work. I can’t believe I’m going to work right now,” because it felt like I was going to hang out with my friends everyday.

Obviously, we did work. But as we rehearsed during the week, we’d get an episode and we’d rehearse it, and we do a run-through for our producers and for our network and everything. But we had so much fun and we just were laughing constantly. We were really like—

We’d have to stop talking after a while because we all had belly aches from laughing so hard. We all had, like, great abdominal muscles by the end because we’re just giggling constantly. Seriously. So, I look forward to getting this opportunity to work with all of them again and continue that fun.

If you have that much chemistry, it’s really going to show on a TV show.

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Yes, I hope that it does. I haven’t seen everything yet, obviously, and I’m really looking forward to seeing it as it airs. But from what our friends have told us and what the producers have said, everyone seems to agree that that chemistry really shows in the work, and that it really comes alive on the screen. And you can see the affection we have for one another and the bond that we’ve created.

Since there are only four roommates really, what’s the story on Thom?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Well, Thom, who’s played by David Weidoff, he is Mark’s best friend from college. He is a quirky, kind of goofball character who’s always trying maybe a little bit too hard at times to be a part of the group and work his way in to be friends with everyone.

But he’s also — as goofy and weird as he is — he’s also Mark’s best friend, and he’s who Mark goes to for advice when he needs to turn to somebody, and he actually occasionally does give Mark some good words of wisdom.

So, technically, he’s not one of the roommates, but he’s like a fixture, I guess. He’s always there.

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Yes, yes, he’s always hanging around and he doesn’t live too far away. Hopefully, they’ll have him moving in a little bit closer later on down the line.

There’s some tension between you and Hope. How do Katie (Dorian Brown) and James (Tommy Dewey) get along?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: They seem to get along just fine. Mark is the one entering the atmosphere. He’s the one entering the apartment and disrupting the way things are. So, Katie and Hope are great friends, and they all seem to get along well enough with James. Everyone sort of takes James with a grain of salt, him being a little bit cocky maybe or a little bit egocentric, but a lovable guy nonetheless.

What’s been the funniest moment for you so far?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Well, we’ve had some pretty wild experiences. I’d say one of the best weeks we had was we had Marilu Henner guest start on the show playing James’ mom, and that was quite a thrill to have her come. And we had a great time with her. She was hilarious, and she’s going to be fantastic on the show. So, that’s one to look out for.

Will the bathroom schedule be a central theme in the show?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Well, it does come up a couple of times, you’ll see, because obviously we live in this— When you see the set, we live in what would be an absolutely beautiful apartment in Brooklyn, and yet we only have one bathroom.

And two women.

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: And two women, yes. And for four people, yes — two women and one very vain man, which would be James. So, that’s kind of a recipe for disaster. But it will definitely pop up, rear its ugly head a couple of times this season.

What’s your opinion of Roommates and why do you think viewers should tune in?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: I think Roommates is going to be a show that is going to appeal to a lot of people because it’s about this pivotal time in a young person’s life. You just graduated from college, you’re just out on your own officially for the first time, and you’re trying to get your career in order, trying to decide maybe what that career might be. You’re trying to find love or have some sort of love life and some sort of social life at the same time.

I think people younger than that age are going to watch it and look forward to that time in their life. I think people who are at that age are going to obviously identify with going through it at the same time. People who are maybe a little bit older I think will look back on that time in their life fondly and hopefully find some humor in what we’re doing as we experience it.

What are your thoughts on the comparison to Friends?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: I think that there are definitely some similarities, Obviously, you have a bunch of young adults kind of living together. I guess the differences would be that we’re obviously younger than they were. Our characters are a lot different. We don’t have the same sort of characters that they had on their show.

Our relationships are much different. That’s, I think, the thing that’s going to set it apart, and the main difference is, when you start to get to know these characters, you’ll see that they’re different individuals and there’s a different group dynamic. And I think the tone of the show is a little different. It’s definitely a fun, lighthearted, out to have a good time kind of show.

How did you get started in acting?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Well, actually, I grew up in New York on Long Island. My mom, who is an artist, was always very encouraging of any interests that me or my brothers had in the arts whatsoever, so we were taking pottery classes when we were kids and all that kind of stuff.

I had an interest in acting from a young age. I was the middle child, so I was obviously starved for attention, as we all are, and I got interested in acting. So, she put me into an acting class.

Through that acting class, I met a manager and then met an agent and slowly started to audition a little bit as I was in high school and in New York City. After that, I went to college and came out to LA and just continued it. That was pretty much how it all began, so I have to attribute it all to my mom.

You’ve been on TV and in movies. Do you have a preference or is one harder than the other?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: No, I like it all. I’m actually down here in Austin, Texas, right now for the South by Southwest Film Festival for a film that I did last year called The Two Bobs. That was like an amazing experience, but then again, those were long days and long hours in the sweltering heat of Austin.

And then I got to turn around and go back to LA in the soundstage and have like a ton of fun doing Roommates with some of my best friends, which was another equally fulfilling experience, but in a completely different way. So, I like to do it all.

I also love theatre. That’s what I grew up doing as kid. It’s what got me interested in acting. So, I’m kind of one of those people that would just— I like to do something that challenges me and I like to just keep trying to be as versatile as I can.

Do you have any other projects coming up or can you tell us about The Two Bobs?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Yes, I’m here in Austin right now for the South by Southwest Film Festival. This movie that I’m here for is called The Two Bobs. I play the role of Vertical Bob in the movie, and we’re these world-class game programmers.

So, we’re these high end guys who program video games, and basically through the course of the movie, our game gets stolen. And it’s this wacky, goofy adventure movie to get our game back and trying to find a life. It’s kind of losers in the beginning, so it’s a fun, wacky, wacky kind of movie.

Have you yourself ever had any funny or bad roommate experiences?

TYLER FRANCAVILLA: Yes, I’ve had several roommates in the past. We’ve usually typically gotten along pretty well. I have to say going back to sharing a bathroom, I’ve always found that to be the most difficult experience in having a roommate, is having to share the bathroom.

I don’t necessarily have anything specific in mind, but I’ve just had roommates that were not very clean, I’d say. Not that I’m the cleanest guy in the world, but I’m sort of a neat person and I like things a little bit organized and little tidy. So, I live alone now and that’s pretty much the way I like it.

Remember Sister, Sister, the cute 1994–1999 sitcom starring young twins Tamera and Tia Mowry, alongside genre veterans Tim Reid and Jackée Harry? Although Tia currently stars on the junior CW sitcom The Game, it’s been three years since TV viewers have had the chance to watch Tamera regularly on Lifetime’s medical drama Strong Medicine, which ended in 2006. The situation is about to change, however, because ABC Family will premiere two new original comedies on March 23, one called Roommates and starring Tamera.

When the actress recently discussed the show in preparation for its debut, she gave up the inside goodies on what it’s all about, how she landed her role as Hope, and even if fans should start dreaming about a Sister, Sister-style reunion on a future episode. Read the revealing Q&A below to learn exactly what’s what.

How would you describe Roommates?

TAMERA MOWRY: Actually, ever since we shot the pilot, a lot of people who have seen the show, whether they’re in the audience or just family and friends, they compare us to Friends. And it puts pressure on us because Friends was obviously just an amazing, amazing show, but it also gives us a lot of encouragement. I tend to compare it to Friends in the sense of having five different characters meshing together and seeing how that works.

However, we’re not all friends in the beginning. We’re just roommates. The only friend that my character, Hope, is friends with is Katie, so that’s how I would describe it — just us experiencing life post-college. So, they’re younger than the characters of Friends because we’re just starting to embark on, I think, one of the most scariest moments of your life, which is basically post-college, just figuring out where do you fit in life, in general.

Since not every single character on the show were originally friends, how did they all come together to be roommates?

TAMERA MOWRY: Well, living in New York and not having much money, you tend to look for places. [Tommy Dewey's] character [James], it’s actually … his place. And Katie [Dorian Brown] and I went to college together, and we were just looking for a place to stay, and so he let us stay there. And then we just happened to have another roommate, so it was just kind of those things, you know, where you’re going through life and you need a place to stay and you see a bulletin, a board that says, “Roommates needed.” And that’s basically how it all started.

Even in real life, I know tons of people who aren’t friends with their roommates. They never even see them, actually. They wake up in the morning and they’re gone. They come back home, they’re gone. So, it’s kind of like that, but not, with this show. Obviously we’re forced to mesh us together and try to figure everybody out.

And I think that’s what makes the show so funny, because we are all distinctively different, and the casting director did, I think, did a wonderful job discovering that with these characters, because we all have something different to bring to the plate. And I think we’re all great in doing that. So, when you put us in a room, we all genuinely care for each other, so we just have fun.

Your character Hope is a career woman without a career. What is she looking to do?

TAMERA MOWRY: Well, Hope, the character, she wants to be in TV. She was a television executive. That is her ultimate goal. The thing is, Hope is very opinionated and she can be a little bit narcissistic, so that gets her in trouble a lot. So, because she really, really cares about what other people think about her, she hides the fact that she got fired and then she’s working as a barista because she wants her best friend to look up to her and she doesn’t want to lose that.

So, she definitely wants to be a television exec, and you never know. Maybe that will happen in the future, maybe not. Maybe she’ll embark on something new because you change careers maybe about eight times in your life I think they say.

How did you get the part? Did you audition for it?

TAMERA MOWRY: To tell you the truth, I did have to audition for it. I had to fight for it, but I totally believed in this character. I loved her. I loved her immediately. The first time I read the slides and I saw Hope, I was like, oh my God, I see myself, bits and pieces of myself in this character, and I know I can have fun playing her. So, I had to audition and then I had to do a test.

Auditioning is a very interesting process, but I had fun and I made the character my own because originally she was supposed to be this very mean-spirited individual, just bitter at the world. But doing comedy for years, I knew that you have to have a bit of like, a likability factor to her, so I made her fun but she just spoke her mind. And, actually, the producer, Michael Hanel, told me, he said, “That’s one of the main reasons why you booked the role. It’s because you put your own twist on it, and we saw that.”

What attracted you to the character in the first place?

TAMERA MOWRY: Well, you know what? I was really, really, really attracted to the script, mainly because I think we have a lack of the original formula of sitcoms and comedy nowadays. And I just loved Hope because she is just basically, “Miss Congeniality would like to have a word with you.”

She’s very nice, but she doesn’t take any mess, and that’s what attracted me to the character. I think she’s very talented. She just can be misguided at times, but she’s also very loving and she just cares for her best friend so much. She can be a bit overprotective, and I’m kind of like that in real life. So, I could somewhat relate to the character.

Where do you draw your inspiration from in the portrayal? Do you find a lot of it coming from your own life?

TAMERA MOWRY: In the sense that I’m just genuinely a very nice person but you just don’t cross me, kind of. And just like if you hurt my family or if you say something [about] my friends. I’m very opinionated, and I get that from my mom being a drill sergeant in the army.

So, I can draw a lot of those experiences to Hope, but a lot of the time I watched, well, Courteney Cox’s character on Friends and then Melinda on Sex and the City. So, I kind of like meshed those two characters together and drew a lot of my inspiration from that.

Since you’re filming in front of a live audience, you have their reactions. I’m sure it’s good for immediately knowing what people think, but how nerve-wracking is that?

TAMERA MOWRY: Oh, my God, to tell you the truth, I haven’t done comedy in ten years. Oh, God, that tells my age. So, going from doing [Lifetime's] Strong Medicine and doing single-camera stuff to four-camera, I literally thought I was going to throw up because you know immediately if a joke works and if it doesn’t. So, in your head, you’re like, “Oh my God, I hope this lands, I hope this lands.”

But what’s so great, I think, about our writers is they taught us to trust the material. So, they just put all the pressure on them. They were like, “You know what, just be real. Say the words, and if it doesn’t work, it’s not on you. It’s on us,” and then they’d change it. So, that helped a lot.

As we all know, you became famous acting with your twin sister Tia. How does working with your sister compare to working without her?

TAMERA MOWRY: Working with my sister, I have to say, is not work at all. We naturally have this chemistry. We always say we’ve been born with a yin and a yang kind of a thing, and we both have each other’s best interests at hand. So, we’re constantly— It’s a weird phenomenon, I have to tell you. When I’m working with Tia, it’s like she can automatically give me feedback because she’s looking at me, you know what I mean? And I’m looking at her, so we always help each other out.

We have that inside encouragement. So, if we’re doing a scene together and I feel that she needs to give me just a little bit more emotion or vice versa, we’re very, very comfortable with telling each other that whereas not working with her, I love my cast mates. Dorian Brown and I, we really clicked as just best friends, and we literally spend so much time together off set as well.

But the thing is, you have to find that chemistry at first. It’s not like just a natural thing, do you know what I mean? But I have to say, by doing other shows and working with other people, other than my sister, this had to have been the quickest that I found chemistry with the cast mates.

Did you and your sister get the lead roles on Sister, Sister right away or was it a long process?

TAMERA MOWRY: It was a very long process. However, we did pitch it. We didn’t have to audition for that role. That was one of the greatest things about meeting a producer called Irene Dreayer. She does The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. She did Sister, Sister. She did Smart Guy. She did Out All Night, and that’s where we met her because my brother [Tahj Mowry] was on that show with Morris Chestnut and Patti LaBelle, and she was like, “Okay, what do you guys want to do?”

And we were always fans of Parent Trap, the movie, and we said we wanted to do a show like that. And we looked at different twin books like Sweet Valley High. There was a show on TV at the time called Double Trouble, and we just liked the idea and pitched it to different networks at 14, not knowing what exactly we were doing, with just being ourselves and telling our life story , and just going in with our fingers crossed and prayers. And that’s basically how we got Sister, Sister.

Since you’ve been acting for a long time, along with your sister and your brother, were you ever worried about getting older and not being able to find certain jobs?

TAMERA MOWRY: Oh, yes. If anything, when you’re in it, you’re not worrying about it. But obviously, when the show ended, so did all the benefits. And people are like, “Oh, that’s the little kid from Sister, Sister,” and it was really hard to accept that.

But I’ll never forget — I don’t know if it was Tatyana Ali or Neil Patrick Harris that said you have to allow yourself to be forgotten in the sense that, live your life. Naturally grow up. So, I went to college. I traveled the world, and then when I came back, because of my life experiences, it naturally happened.

I didn’t have to take off my clothes or do something crazy in order for people to see that I’m an adult now. But it was a very hard transition, I’m not going to lie. I was out of work for at least two years, and then I hadn’t got a series in four until I did Strong Medicine.

Would you like your sister Tia to guest star on Roommates in the future?

TAMERA MOWRY: Well, my sister and I made a pact because we did a show for six years together, we’re going to leave it that way. I didn’t guest star in The Game and she doesn’t want— Well, not that she doesn’t want to. We think it’s safe for her not to guest star in Roommates. However, we want to do feature films and movies together.

Do you have any other projects coming up besides Roommates?

TAMERA MOWRY: My sister and I are doing a movie for Lifetime called The Wedding. It’s from a production company, Twilight Productions. It’ll be our first project, so we’re really, really, really, really, really excited about that.

When people think of basic cable’s ABC Family, one of the first things that probably comes to mind is youth-oriented programming featuring lots of teenagers. Well, that’s about to change tonight when the network premieres Roommates and Sophie back to back from 9pm to 10pm EST.

Both new shows are sitcoms that focus on older than usual characters (at least for ABC Family) in their twenties, who are past college and actually have full-time jobs. Shocker! The first series, Roommates, is all about two guys and two gals who live together in New York — Tyler Francavilla (Mark), Dorian Brown (Katie), Tamera Mowry (Hope), and Tommy Dewey (James) — plus Mark’s best bud and non-roommate Thom (David Weidoff).

Sounds too close for comfort, right? Considering that Mark also happens to have a thing for Katie, his high school crush, and that Thom develops a thing for Hope, an executive recently downsized to working at a coffee shop, that’s probably where much of the humor will come from.

Following Roommates at 9:30pm is Sophie, which stars Natalie Brown as the title character, a career woman and single mother. The last is not by choice, however.

Right before she has their baby, Sophie’s boyfriend Rick (Sebatstian Spence) leaves her for Melissa (Amy Lalonde), her former best friend and top client at her talent agency. Sophie then must not only cope with parenting alone and the humiliation of being so unceremoniously dumped, but also the harsh realization that her ex is her current professional rival, and he’s stealing her clients, to boot.

Of the two shows, Sophie seems like it’s more up my alley. I can relate better to the more adult-sounding material, plus Spence has been a favorite of mine since his long-ago days on the sci-fi drama First Wave.

Comedy fans with good memories might remember that Tamera Mowry was a child actress who starred with her twin sister Tia Mowry Hardrict on the ABC and WB sitcom Sister, Sister for an impressive six seasons back in the 1990s. Since Tia currently heads up the CW sitcom The Game, it will be nice to have both talented siblings on the tube at the same time and in the same genre again.

Check out promos for the new sitcoms Roommates and Sophie below and tune in on Monday nights, from 9pm to 10pm, starting with tonight’s premieres “The Roommate” and “The Tornado,” respectively.