'Apartment 23' video clips: Get ready for James Van Der Beek... as James Van Der Beek

Is the world ready for womanizing, egomaniacal adult Dawson Leery? Would we have it any other way?

Well, we're in luck. One of the more promising new comedies on ABC's laugh-heavy line-up is "Apartment 23" (previously the much more appealing "Don't Trust the Bi*** in Apartment 23"), and it features James Van Der Beek playing a heavily self-parodied version of himself.

He's just one aspect of the show about a Midwestern girl (Dreama Walker) who moves in with the worst roommate imaginable (Krysten Ritter), who takes naive girls' rent and deposits just to scare them out of her sweet digs. Van Der Beek plays her former beau turned "straight gay BFF," and though he's not the most prominent figure in the series, he the most notable.

But will the Dawson gags endure -- or even work --- after the pilot? We're cautiously optimistic.

"23" is currently set to debut midseason, once the fall run of "Dancing With the Stars" finishes up, at 9:30 p.m. ET. And you can start to form your opinions based on these first two clips: