By FIONA RAE
Felicity can rest easy in her dorm bed. Buffy can keep kicking vampire butt without a care in the world. Time of Your Life's Sarah Merrin is a total ditz who was lucky to be given another season.
In fact, in the United States the Fox network has put Time of Your Life (TV3, 7.30 pm) "on hiatus" as they say, and plan a "Summer of Love" to relaunch the remaining nine unaired episodes of the first season.
The pilot, which we saw two weeks ago, was completely reshot. Was it really that bad? Well, the creators claim it was because of a scheduling change - it was given a new timeslot preceding Ally McBeal so they changed the script to target the Ally audience. Cynical? Hey, this is business.
That "Summer of Love" refers to star Jennifer Love Hewitt, known as "Love" to the American tabloids who, you may or may not know, was in Party of Five.
She's the busiest babe in show business, having made three albums, starred in several movies - including a biopic of Audrey Hepburn - and is best known for screamfests I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer.
But as Party of Five comes to the end of its useful life, the show's makers thought it might be a good idea to put its hottest star in a spin-off show of her own.
It's a shame they didn't think of any new ideas at the same time.
Even the theme song is recycled - an indie-style rendering of the Beatles' I've Just Seen a Face.
So it goes like this: Sarah Merrin leaves San Francisco to go to New York (sheesh, always New York) to search for her biological dad.
Of course this is also a journey of self-discovery (sheesh, enough with the self-discovery already) and as soon as she gets there she meets a cast of stereotypes who are there to help her on the way.
There's Cute Musician Guy (Jonathon Schaech) who just happens to be an "awesome" guitarist and whose job is to smile indulgently whenever Sarah is making an absolute boob of herself.
Last week he kissed her and she was overcome with guilt because she has a boyfriend from Party of Five.
Then there's Struggling Actor Girl (Jennifer Garner who was in - gasp! - Felicity) with whom Sarah can share her innermost secrets, even though they only met five minutes ago.
And, best of all, there's Weird And Feisty Bitch Downstairs (Pauley Perrette) who has dance parties every other night and flashes her bosoms at delivery boys in lieu of a tip, which Sarah secretly admires but would never do herself.
Amazingly, Sarah has found the building where her dead mother used to live and is now living in the same apartment. Plus, she already has a job in the karaoke bar across the street, where Love will frequently get to show off her squeaky vocal talents.
In the pilot, Sarah decided after one failure in locating her father to immediately go back to San Francisco, but changed her mind after an epiphany on the subway.
"I came to New York looking for my father, but I think I found my mother - in me," she wittered. Cute Musician Guy and Token Black Woman from the karaoke bar looked at each other indulgently.
Talk about a screamfest. You'll die laughing.
TV: Time of Your Life - Screamer or squeaker?
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