Unfortunately, Season 3 is already starting out with one strike against it, due to the departure of Jennifer Elise Cox from the cast. She was a great comedic foil for John Lehr as Leslie’s longtime crush, Amy Anderson, but I guess the producers must not have been able to figure out what to do with her character once she left Super Value Mart and came to work at the Greens & Grains. Instead, we’re introduced to Amy’s replacement at Super Value Mart: Mercedes P. Jones, played by Kim Coles (“Living Single”). She’s proven in the past that she’s a gifted comedienne, but aside from a brief bit about why her character has picked up the nickname “The Velvet Hammer,” her contributions to the 3rd season premiere are predominantly limited to reacting to other people’s lines and offering up generic sassy dialogue. Let’s hope she’s given more of an opportunity to shine creatively in future episodes.

The good news, though, is that the premiere is pretty damned funny even without utilizing Coles, and the reason why can be summed up in two words: turkey bowling.

In typical fashion, Leslie makes a lame-brained maneuver and orders a ridiculous number of frozen turkeys for the store, causing the store’s resident butcher, Todd (Chris Payne Gilbert), to finally let fly with a flurry of insults about his boss’s inability to manage the Greens & Grains properly. In a fit of anger, Todd hurls one of the turkeys down an aisle and proceeds to knock down a bunch of two-liters…and, suddenly, a new store pastime is born. At first, Leslie is a grouch about the new game, reminding Carl about how poorly his last invention, forklift hockey, went over; all it takes is one throw, though, and Leslie is a full-fledged convert…like, to the point where he stays up all night doing it.

There’s some pretty fierce product placement in this episode, including Vaseline and Hellman’s, but as on “30 Rock,” you have to laugh at the way they work it into the script, particularly during the Greens & Grains commercial. (Be sure to check out http://www.lesliesturkeybowling.com, by the way.)

For some reason, TBS opted to send out the season premiere coupled with the fourth episode of the new season, so it’s impossible to say if Season 3 is going to continue to live up to its initial success from start to finish, but for what it’s worth, Episode 4 is called “Eye Can See Clearly” and revolves around the very funny premise of the Greens & Grains opening a Lasik surgery office within the store. (Fans of the earlier seasons will be pleased to find that the office is run by Don “The Bag” Bagley.) Coles is nowhere to be seen, but there is a subplot involving Yolanda trying to market her own line of tubetops, and, boy, does she wear them well.

But I digress.

Long story short, these two episodes manage to evade most of the issues I had with the show’s first two seasons, so I’m extremely happy with them. If the rest of Season 3 stays on the same path, then “10 Items or Less” will quickly become must-see TV for me. And here I thought “My Boys” would forever remain the only TBS series to earn that coveted status. Color me pleasantly surprised.