Poor Abby. She’s finally dumped her insufferable, egotistical boyfriend—but she still has to live with him.
   It’s a matter of money, of course.  They rent a perfect, affordable San Francisco apartment that neither one is willing to give up. So they agree to share the space as friends.
    And so UPN’s eternal struggle to find a hit sitcom continues. “Abby,” the netlet’s latest attempt, has a tiny head start. It stars Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Sidney Poitier’s daughter), a semi-known name that at least guarantees a couple of magazine profiles.
   On the other hand, UPN’s doing its best to lose viewers right away by simply baffling them: The pilot airs tonight at 9:30 p.m., and the second episode airs tomorrow at 9:30. But viewers who tune in at either of these times next week will find some other dreadful UPN sitcom, since “Abby” in fact airs Tuesdays at 9.
   In any case, it's hard to imagine too many people actually trying to tune in next week.
   Tonight’s episode gets off to a fairly strong start. Abby, a producer of a West Coast sports show, has great rapport with her co-workers, and the pilot episode features some sharp comic writing.
   “Who is that fine-looking man?” asks Abby’s older sister. “That’s Stuart, the show’s high-school intern,” she replies. “Oooh! Finally, a man with a job!” Granted, it’s not especially original material, but it gets a laugh.
   The premise, too, may be somewhat stale — it winds up playing like a rehash of the short-lived Fox sitcom “Ned and Stacey” — but the initial set up is well done. 
   Abby finally dumps her live-in beau Will (Kadeem Hardison, best known as Dwayne Wayne from “A Different World”) when he forgets to get her an anniversary gift and decides to propose so she’ll forgive him. “I could never possibly love you as much as you love yourself,” she tells him. “I’ll wait,” he responds.
   But tomorrow’s episode explores how attracted Abby and Will still are to each other. This might work if Will weren’t presented as such a shallow, preening creep. As it is, there’s no conceivable reason for Abby to have dated him for two years, and certainly no reason for her to still be tempted.
   The writing staff appears to have realized as much, since they spend most of the episode throwing out incredibly weak sex jokes. “My date’s the one with the peek-a-boo thong,” says Abby’s boss (and Will’s friend) at one point. “So if you don’t see me after the concert, it’s because I’ll be at home playing peek-a-boo.” Standup comics have been beaten backstage for jokes that obvious.
   And much of the humor is simply more icky than amusing. Do we honestly need to know that Will has an erection? Apparently we do.
   The second episode also features a gratuitous celebrity guest appearance from R&B star Kenny Lattimore, the kind usually trotted out by sitcoms in their death throes (or by “Ally McBeal” every week it was on the air).
   Still, there are bright spots.
   Poitier is generally appealing (though a bit stiff in her few dramatic moments), and Randy J. Goodwin stands out in the supporting cast as Max, the sports anchor with a blatant crush on Abby. He’s also the perfect guy — handsome, sensitive, devoted to her — so she naturally thinks of him only as a friend.
   In general, the very few moments at work, where Abby is a supremely capable woman in the ultimate man’s universe, hint at the possibilities of a better workplace sitcom like “NewsRadio” or “Sports Night.”
   Sure, the show’s premise is built around that perfect apartment. But really, “Abby” needs to get out more.

January 6, 2003© 2003 Media Life

-Dan Jewel is a senior editor at Biography Magazine in New York and a frequent contributor to Media Life.

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