TV Preview
'The Return of Jezebel James,' briefly
By Diego Vasquez
Mar 14, 2008 - 1:15:59 AM

This is one in a series of Media Life previews of those programs.
 
Name of show 
“The Return of Jezebel James”
 
Timeslot 
Fox, Friday 8 p.m. (moves to 8:30 next week)
 
Plot synopsis 
Just when it seems like you have everything, you stumble on something unattainable, and that’s the premise of Fox’s new sitcom “The Return of Jezebel James.”
 
The series stars Parker Posey as Sarah Tompkins, who, in a nice bit of corporate synergy, runs an imprint at News Corp.-owned HarperCollins’ children’s division. She’s got a loft in Brooklyn, an always-there personal assistant, and a no-strings relationship with businessman Marcus Sonti (Scott Cohen).
 
Sarah’s also about to publish the sequel to her hit novel for young adults, “The True Adventures of Jezebel James.” Yet there’s one thing in her life she can’t have, children.
 
Looking for a solution, Sarah enlists her slacker sister Coco (Lauren Ambrose) to move off a friend’s couch and into Sarah’s loft to carry and give birth to her baby. Coco at first thinks her older and more successful sister is plain crazy, but once she learns that Sarah based the Jezebel James character on Coco’s own childhood imaginary friend, she's suddenly willing to go ahead with the baby plan.
 
“James” is from “Gilmore Girls” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino.
 
Outlook 
The biggest things “James” has going for it are that it’s from Sherman-Palladino, who built a devout following during the “Gilmore Girls” days, and it’s the only comedy airing on broadcast tonight.

But that's it. Everything else about this sitcom says sinker.
 
The first bad sign was when, back in October, Fox cut its order from 13 to seven episodes, including the pilot. Then it switched it from its orginal timeslot of Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m to Fridays at 8. Shows shoved off to Friday have death written across their foreheads. No broadcast comedy has done well on Friday since the “TGIF” days on ABC.
 
Tonight’s back-to-back episodes air against NBC’s game show “Amne$ia,” CW’s “Friday Night Smackdown” and a repeat of “Grey’s Anatomy” on ABC, none of which perform particularly well.
 
Its strongest competitor tonight will be CBS’s primetime version of “The Price is Right,” which last week pulled a 2.5 rating among viewers 18-49, not great but not bad considering it’s Friday night.
 
Next week becomes even more problematic for “Jezebel James,” when it airs at 8:30 following a repeat of the low-rated comedy “Til Death” and against CBS’s coverage of the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which is sure to draw off viewers.
 
The buzz 
One thing media people look for in evaluating a new show is how much confidence network executives have in it, and here they're seeing not much by the fact that its order was cut and it was moved to Fridays.
 
“How good a feeling can you have about a new show on Friday nights, where Fox hasn’t had a presence since ‘X-Files’ years ago?” asks Jordan Breslow, director of broadcast research with MediaCom.

And he questions its 8:30 timeslot beginning next week. “[Lead-in] ‘Til Death’ was never really strong enough on its own, and I just don’t think there are going to be viewers for it,” he says. “I don’t see this one clicking.”
 
What critics are saying 
“Alas, if the episodes of ‘The Return of Jezebel James’ offered for review are indicative of the series as a whole, ‘Gilmore Girls’ might have been Sherman-Palladino’s brief, shining Camelot.” – Tom Jicha, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
 
“That balance between poignant and funny is difficult to pull off. It may become impossible on a weekly basis. The casting is intriguing, the signature Sherman-Palladino rapid-fire banter is in place, but the whole effort tends disastrously toward the standard-issue sitcom.” – Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post
 
“Sherman-Palladino forces the sisters on each other out of an almost crippling sense of joint self-interest that’s as painful as it is illogical. Supposedly, the two bond when Sarah tells Coco the name of her new book series: ‘Jezebel James,’ after Coco’s childhood imaginary friend. It’s weak grounds for motherhood, and even weaker for comedy.”  – Alynda Wheat, Entertainment Weekly