THE `PARTY' IS FINALLY OVER; HEWITT'S THE ONLY ONE HAVING TIME OF HER LIFE IN SPIN-OFF.Byline: David Kronke TV Critic The only person for whom Jennifer Love Hewitt's new series represents ``The Time of Your Life'' is Hewitt herself. The rest of us have significantly less reason to be enthused. Here, Sarah Merrin (Hewitt), whom we first met variously cuddling up to and ducking Bailey on ``Party of Five,'' comes to New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of on her own on a quixotic quix·ot·ic also quix·ot·i·cal adj. 1. Caught up in the romance of noble deeds and the pursuit of unreachable goals; idealistic without regard to practicality. 2. quest to locate her father. She has precious little information on him but, in one of those twists that only Hollywood writers seem to appreciate, within hours of landing in the Big Apple, she's already living in the same apartment her late mother rented all those years ago. She meets up with the requisite batch of purportedly colorful neighborhood characters - keep your checklist handy. There's the brashly irresponsible building super, the struggling actress (wouldn't someone from the Pacific Northwest have headed for L.A. instead, especially given that she's auditioning for film roles anyway?), the take-no-guff barkeep and the brooding, smoldering smol·der also smoul·der intr.v. smol·dered, smol·der·ing, smol·ders 1. To burn with little smoke and no flame. 2. musician. Especially the brooding, smoldering musician (Jonathon Schaech), with whom, it's inevitable, Sarah will have a brooding, smoldering relationship. This is decidedly sunnier stuff than the famously lugubrious lu·gu·bri·ous adj. Mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially to an exaggerated or ludicrous degree. [From Latin l ``Party of Five,'' but since no one dies or contracts a potentially fatal illness in tonight's episode, it'd pretty much have to be. It's not, however, particularly persuasive in its details. Sarah bursts in on a theater impresario in a men's room during a benefit gala she crashed, erroneously believing him to be her father. No matter, she wins him over so quickly he's later dispatching his personal attorney to get her out of a staggeringly uninteresting pickle - she's busted for jumping a subway turnstile. Hewitt, pert to a fault, tries really hard to be quirky and likable. Really, really hard. Her supporting cast all hits its marks and projects the one sliver of attitude that defines each of them. (It's mildly dismaying to think, given her youth and the gawkiness Noun 1. gawkiness - the carriage of someone whose movements and posture are extremely ungainly and inelegant ungainliness clumsiness, awkwardness - the carriage of someone whose movements and posture are ungainly or inelegant of her performance here, that she's playing Audrey Hepburn in an upcoming TV movie.) For the record, Hewitt, who has released a handful of CDs, sings two numbers in the pilot. It's apparently a measure of what a good sport the actress is that she actually butchers both tunes - ``New York, New York'' and REM's ``It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).'' Whatever the thinking, it doesn't exactly induce one to run out and get her albums - nor, for that matter, to make plans to be around next week for Episode 2. `Ally McBeal' How did writer/executive producer/writer/Emmy winner/and more writer David E. Kelley spend his summer vacation Summer vacation (also called summer holidays or summer break) is a vacation in the summertime between school years in which students are off for 3 months, depending on the country and district. ? Consider: All the various subplots on both tonight's season premiere In television, a season première refers to the first episode of a new television season for a series that has been renewed. In North America, a given show's season première often airs in September or October, after several months of reruns. of ``Ally McBeal'' and next week's episode involve sex - anonymous sex anonymous sex Pubic health Any sexual activity in which the partners' identities are unknown–often intentionally to each other at the time of the activity's occurrence. See Bathhouse, Glory hole, Sex club. , kinky kink·y adj. kink·i·er, kink·i·est 1. Tightly twisted or curled: kinky hair. 2. sex, illicit sex, experimental variations with results both intriguing and disastrous. In both episodes, Calista Flockhart's big acting scenes involve making her mouth all pouty and desire-drenched. Add to this the fact that the first two episodes of Kelley's other quality series, ``The Practice,'' involved both cross-dressing and an even more arcane sexual fetish fetish (fĕt`ĭsh), inanimate object believed to possess some magical power. The fetish may be a natural thing, such as a stone, a feather, a shell, or the claw of an animal, or it may be artificial, such as carvings in wood. , and that the main themes of his tacky new show ``Snoops'' are women oozing oozing exudation of fluid. sexuality and voyeurism Voyeurism See also Eavesdropping. Actaeon turned into stag for watching Artemis bathe. [Gk. Myth.: Leach, 8] elders of Babylon watch Susanna bathe. . And Kelley is considered TV's class act. Tonight's ``Ally McBeal'' kicks off the season with a groaningly half-baked premise that finds our ever-bewildered heroine an unwilling bridesmaid at a wedding where she makes a huge, embarrassing stink - even the congregation turns on her. Thank heavens that Greg Germann, Jane Krakowski and Peter MacNicol are around to provide some clever doodling in the episode's margins. Next week's episode is even less subtle, and is clearly intended to grab everyone's attention as Ally considers a fling with the last person a fan would expect. Sex is the easiest topic to riff endlessly - and pointlessly - on, and as clever a writer as Kelley is, he hasn't pushed the envelope in the way that he thinks he has. (He is using his clout, though, to get away with things that other show runners wouldn't dare suggest to their network bosses. Mainly, it seems - as with the simple existence of ``Snoops'' - to merely prove that he can.) Interestingly, in almost every case in these two episodes, sexual activity leads to some sort of humiliation. ``McBeal'' has always wallowed in its sundry romantic convolutions, but as its third season commences, the show seems to be less witty and urbane and more flat-out obvious. The facts The show: ``The Time of Your Life.'' What: ``Party of Five'' spin-off starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. Who: Jonathon Schaech, Jennifer Garner, Pauley Perrette, Diego Serrano, Where: Fox (Channel 11). When: 8 tonight. Our rating: Two stars The show: ``Ally McBeal.'' What: Season premiere of the Emmy-winning comedy-drama. Who: Calista Flockhart, Lisa Nicole Carson Lisa Nicole Carson (born July 12, 1969) is an American actress. Carson was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent her adolescence in Gainesville, Florida, attending F. W. Buchholz High School and graduating in June, 1987. , Courtney Thorne-Smith, Greg Germann, Jane Krakowski, Lucy Liu, Peter MacNicol, Gil Bellows. Where: Fox (Channel 11) When: 9 tonight. Our rating: Three stars CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO The supporting cast of the TV series ``The Time of Your Life'' hits its marks and projects the one sliver of attitude that defines each of them. |
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