American Idol 2008 - Return of the Gilmores Fans will dissect comedy
Return of the Gilmores? Fans will dissect comedy
In 2001, during the first season of “Gilmore Girls,” a rumor circulated that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino didn’t really exist. Credited to sources as reliable as The Associated Press, the rumor held that “Amy Sherman-Palladino” was a pen name used by Aaron Sorkin, creator of “The West Wing,” who was scripting the snappy “Gilmore Girls” banter in his spare time.
The supposed AP story that initially fooled some fans turned out to be an elaborate hoax. But now, Sherman-Palladino and Sorkin have something else in common.
Last season, Sorkin returned to TV with “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” a comedy-drama that might have sparkled brighter without endless comparisons to the “West Wing.”
And tonight, Sherman-Palladino tries a similar comeback, offering another show about fast-talking female relatives, this time the estranged Thomkins sisters, called “The Return of Jezebel James.” Advertisement
Indie-movie favorite Parker Posey is brittle Sarah, a children’s book editor. “Six Feet Under” veteran Lauren Ambrose is black-sheep Coco. In the pilot, they reunite when Sarah decides her biological clock has ticked long enough and she should have a baby. Crushed to learn she can’t, she recruits her directionless mess of a sister to serve as a surrogate.
No baby will ensue quickly. First, old resentments must surface; long-nurtured grievances will have to be dealt with. And there’s that pesky matter of a baby-daddy.
Other regulars include Scott Cohen as Sarah’s new boyfriend, Marcus; Michael Arden as her assistant, Buddy; and Ron McLarty as the sisters’ father, Ronald.
And Jezebel James? There is no Jezebel James, who turns out to have been Coco’s imaginary friend in childhood, now a book character reinvented by Sarah.
Stephen Bochco, David E. Kelley and a handful of other producers have turned out hit after hit (and a fair share of flops) with seemingly little angst. Producers who struggle, and suffer backlash, are typically those whose first hit was both beloved and unique.
Will the new show be very much like the original, inspiring the unfair comparisons of a younger child constantly held up to a brilliant sibling? Or will it be completely different, risking viewers’ instant disappointment?
Sorkin’s first TV series, the brilliant “Sports Night,” plays in retrospect like a half-hour prototype for “The West Wing,” but it attracted so little attention in its original run that few made the connection.
But “The West Wing” was still fresh in our memories when “Studio 60″ arrived in the fall of 2006. Watching the new show, “West Wing” fans sometimes felt as if they’d entered a parallel universe. Squint, and the backstage halls of Sorkin’s fictional sketch-comedy series might have been some especially shabby, poorly lighted corner of the White House. Close your eyes, and the rapid-fire banter was eerily familiar, in tone if not in topic.
Sorkin even added to the confusion by casting Bradley Whitford, Josh on “The West Wing,” as one of his heroes, Danny; and plugging in Timothy Busfield, who played reporter Danny on “The West Wing,” as director Cal.
Similarly, Sherman-Palladino echoes “Gilmore Girls” with the casting of Cohen, who played teacher Max, one of Lorelai’s fiancés. Even more disorienting is the fact that, from some angles, Posey looks very much like Lauren Graham, who starred as Lorelai Gilmore.
Although Sherman-Palladino departed a year earlier, “Gilmore Girls” ended its run only last May and is double-run daily on cable’s ABC Family.
Unlike Sorkin, who may have tempted fate by turning out a follow-up show so superficially similar to “The West Wing,” Sherman-Palladino tried to avoid that trap by conceiving “Jezebel James” as a half-hour comedy, shot partly with multiple cameras and a studio audience, rather than an hourlong dramedy. Fox has thwarted her plan, however, by launching the series with back-to-back episodes, essentially creating a one-hour show.
Fox seemed gung-ho on landing the “Gilmore Girls” creator — “quite brilliant,” network chairman Peter Liguori called Sherman-Palladino — in introducing “Jezebel James” last summer. Likewise, “Gilmore Girls” fans were initially excited about the new show.
But along the way, Fox decided not to pair “Jezebel James” with “American Idol,” or even to preview it there. Instead, the series will air Fridays, and the order has been cut to seven episodes from 13.
Potential viewers, too, began to have second thoughts.
“I’m excited to see Amy working on something again,” one wrote on a “Gilmore Girls” website (GilmoreGirlsNews.com). “I just wish it was for another season of ‘Gilmore Girls.’”
“I feel like crying!” another chimed in. “When I see AS-P’s name on the credits of the show, I’ll remember ‘GG’ — and God, it’s so hard to let go.”
And if “The Return of Jezebel James” flops? Maybe then, fans suggest, Sherman-Palladino will have time to work on a “Gilmore Girls” reunion movie.
Josh Gracin released his second CD“ We Weren’ t Crazy” this week. Josh placed fourth on American Idol Season 2— you can still see him on American Idol: Rewind this weekend. His self- titled first CD sold 695,000— almost as much as Taylor Hicks.