Coming off an especially hair-raising test, DMV driving examiner Colette (Harriet Dyer) decides this was her wakeup call.

“I can’t throw away my life in some dead-end job for crappy pay and no hope of happiness,” she declares. She’s no longer going to sit back and accept whatever crap the universe gives her, or wait for it to drop better things in her lap. She’s going to make a move on her crush! She’s going to get a second date! Maybe she’ll even leave the job she’s been telling herself is just temporary for the past five years!

She will, of course, do none of those things, or at least not yet. Instead, she’ll end the day in humiliation and then come back the next day to see what fresh indignities await her, because she is a character in a workplace comedy.

The very strongest moments of DMV, CBS’ brand-new single-cam, tap into that sense of stuck-ness, intensified by clocking in each day to that most purgatorial of government institutions. And while the series only reaches those heights occasionally in the four half-hours previewed by critics, its intriguing setting, combined with an above-average cast, provide a promising foundation for improvement.

Though Dyer’s Colette is the closest thing the DMV ensemble has to a lead, its brightest star is Gregg, a fellow examiner played by Tim Meadows with the embittered misery of someone who understands his existence as a cosmic joke. It is Gregg who gets the best reaction shots (frequently punctuated by mishaps involving an office chair — someone check to see if Tecca is somehow involved in this one, too), the funniest dialogue and the single most enjoyable storyline of the series so far.

In it, he takes it upon himself to school Noa (Alex Tarrant), an enterprising recent hire, in the art of wasting time. “Breaks are one of the few perks we still have left here at the DMV,” he explains while puffing an imaginary cigarette during an unnecessary smoke break, “and if heroes like you start working through them, then it’s only a matter of time before Big Sac [i.e., the headquarters in Sacramento] starts coming down here and taking that away from us, too.” To Gregg, taking extra bathroom trips or using the far printer aren’t simply a matter of laziness. They’re methods of battling a greedy system, acquired through years of demoralizing experience.

Given the straightforwardness of the show’s premise, it might come as a slight surprise that it’s actually based on a (rather delightful) short story by Katherine Heiny. But Dana Klein’s series shares with its source material an interest in the sorts of specific workplace details that, over time, become their own language. I laughed, for example, at the concept of “washout Wednesday” — among this crew, it’s accepted wisdom that new hires either rage-quit their third Wednesday or stick around for life, which becomes a real issue when Colette realizes her crush, Noa, is about to hit that mark in the middle of a heat wave with a broken HVAC system.

Like most brand-new comedies, however, DMV suffers from the unevenness of a series trying to find its voice. Its general sensibility seems more Superstore than The Office, down to the interstitial montages of customers acting up in the perpetually overcrowded waiting room. But the tone swings between sour and sweet, grounded and silly, and the jokes run more broadly wacky than precise or original.

Having Colette attempt to flirt with her office crush, Noa, is a decent set-up. Having her realize mid-convo that a (clean) maxi-pad has mysteriously gotten stuck to her skirt is a wrinkle more random than clever, and not made any funnier by her labored attempts to get rid of it. Having her react to that mortification by trying to climb out the window, only to get stuck in the opening with her shirt off and a nail cutting into her side as the whole staff looks on, is such a jarring escalation I wondered if I had been misreading this show’s vibe entirely.

The cast chemistry is likewise still a work in progress. The dynamic between the three driving examiners (Colette, Gregg and Vic, a sleazy fitness bro blessed with the impeccable physical comedy chops of The Righteous Gemstones’ Tony Cavalero) feels broken-in from the jump — rooted not so much in affection or animosity than in the intimacy that comes with spending 40 hours a week with anyone, even people you’d never interact with if you weren’t paid to.

On the other hand, Barb (Molly Kearney), the just-promoted branch manager, is a cartoon whose distinguishing characteristics are an inexplicable enthusiasm for her job and a habit of bumbling into sexual innuendo. (She’s the one who coined the term “Big Sac.”) Gigi Zumbado is a sly scene-stealer as Ceci, the department’s relatively cool and confident and young photographer, but hasn’t been given much to do besides snark from the sidelines. And Tarrant’s Noa, despite getting more screentime than either of them, is so far more just an amiably clueless straight man for everyone else (but mostly Colette) to project their weirdness onto than a compelling personality of his own.

As a real agency, the DMV has earned its decades-long reputation as, to quote Colette in the opening voiceover, “a place not always celebrated for its efficiency, organization and customer care.” But, she adds with an optimism that belies the reality we’re watching play out in front of us, “For those of us who work here, it’s pretty good most of the time.”

To that, I’ll add that for those of us watching those who work there, DMV is only okay most of the time. But should it settle into a more comfortable groove over its journey, it has the potential to turn, eventually, into a fun ride.