[2] The series stars Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy as the eponymous Mike and Molly, a couple who meet in a Chicago Overeaters Anonymous group and fall in love.

Mike initially lives in a one-bedroom apartment and often visits his cantankerous, divorced mother, Peggy.

Molly and her sister, Victoria, live in the Chicago home owned by their widowed mother, Joyce.

Mike and his best friend Carl, also an officer with the Chicago PD, frequently eat breakfast at Abe's Diner, where they befriend their Senegalese waiter, Samuel.

Mark Roberts wrote the pilot, which was directed by James Burrows, with both Roberts and Burrows serving as executive producers alongside Chuck Lorre, Don Foster and the production companies Chuck Lorre Productions and Warner Bros.

Though the cast and setting remains essentially the same, the "new" refers to Molly quitting her teaching job and pursuing a career as a writer.

The consensus reads: "Mike & Molly is a conventional sitcom that's able to mine some big laughs, thanks to the immensely appealing central performers".

[46] Critic Randee Dawn gave the show a negative review, stating the cast is likable, but the jokes are old and bland.

[47] Controversy arose in 2010 around a Marie Claire blog post written by Maura Kelly, in which she refers to the actors on the show as "fatties", questioned if Mike & Molly was endorsing obesity, and also says she would be repulsed by the sight of overweight actors kissing.

[48] Show creator Mark Roberts spoke out regarding Kelly's blog post, calling the comments "very high school".

[55] Kelly subsequently stated she "would like to apologize for the insensitive things I've said" and "sorely regret[s] that it upset people so much".

In the United Kingdom and Ireland it aired on Comedy Central UK from October 4, 2010[62] and reran on Channel 4 from September 10, 2018.

The series began airing in off-network syndication on NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, The CW, MyNetworkTV, and independent stations across the country in the fall of 2014.