I review it and its follow-up show "Notes from the Underbelly" in this TV review.
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ABC's "Samantha Who?" Rode the Wave of Dancing With the Stars...Now What?
ABC's "Samantha Who? Web Site
Heh.
Yes I watched this series starring Christina Applegate several times before the episode of this review and even as I watched I knew it was dumb, lacking any discernible audience and not even remotely believable.
So why did I watch it?
Well at the time this show was sandwiched between "Dancing With the Stars" and "The Bachelor". As calculated by those who shrewdly put it in that opportunistic time slot, I didn't bother to change the channel. The hype at the time was that the brand new sparkling series “Samantha Who?” was the number one comedy show in America. I smirked then. I knew it wouldn’t last.
I was right.
From Medialife:
Without a “Dancing with the Stars” lead-in, “Samantha Who?” lost a step.
The new ABC comedy, the season’s top-rated new show, fell to a series low Monday night in its first outing without “Stars,” which aired its season finale last week.
“Samantha” averaged a 2.9 adults 18-49 rating at 9 p.m. Monday, according to Nielsen overnights, off 33 percent from its previous 4.3 average.
Here's the premise: Samantha was once a nasty-assed bitch, you should excuse my language. Then she was in some sort of an accident and recovered physically but had a case of amnesia so bad she didn't know who she was.
TADA. Imagine the opportunity to create, from scratch, a whole new you.
Sam returned home after her recovery but didn't know anyone in her life, including her parents, her former boyfriend, with whom she had been living, and her female friends.
Somehow, oddly, Samantha manages to incorporate herself back into her job, which is, well I'm not sure what but something in advertising. For the benefit of the viewer, who did not know Sam before her accident, the people in Sam's life react to her presence like they probably did BEFORE the accident. IE, when she was a very unpleasant individual.
Of course the "new" Sam has no recollection of her former nasty ways and is as innocent and surprised by the reactions of those who feared her as she is now a new and nice person. An example is Samantha's secretary, who Sam, as her old self, evidently misused and mistreated as the woman cowers in Sam's presence like a scared dog in front of an angry owner.
In fact the episode that aired on the night of this review, Monday, 12/10/07, a large portion of the show was devoted to getting the relationship of boss to subordinate to an even keel. The “new” Samantha didn’t think it was appropriate for her secretary to be so very frightened of her. After many attempts to calm the scared assistant down and to effect a more giving relationship, the scared secretary took it too far and at one point couldn’t take a phone message for Samantha due to her wet fingernails.
The “new” Samanatha had to borrow a little of the “old” Samantha because what good is an administrative assistant who doesn’t assist?
Also on the episode of this review, Samanatha had sex for the first time since her accident. Samantha did not, of course, remember the act of sex and, of course, she did quite enjoy the experience with her handsome carpenter hunk. Said hunk then immediately dumped her, giving Sam her first broken heart in her new life.
This series is going nowhere. It doesn’t have a quirky premise like “Pushing Up Daisies”. It doesn’t have funny and intriguing characters like “The Office”. It doesn’t appeal to the ladies of my generation who would not like the old Samantha and can’t relate to the new one. Younger and more romantic females aren’t going to see this as the next Mary Tyler Moore of their generation.
Christina Applegate is a very pretty woman who seems to garner plenty of opportunities to burst wide open upon our television screens.
She’s failed again.
Can Having a Baby in Los Angeles Possibly Be Funny?
Indeed I do think having a baby can be funny. In fact, plenty of comedy shows had pregnant women who sometimes even gave birth.
The premise of this series titled “Notes From the Underbelly” probably makes sense to about ½ percent of the females in America.
ABC’s Site for “Notes from the Underbelly”
See here in the United States of America, only a small percentage of us females live in California. An even smaller percentage of us live in Los Angeles.
We don’t understand except on a vague and fuzzy level the hip and sophisticated woman who lives the Los Angeles lifestyle. We don’t, most of us, live in a happening urban enclave that would us chasing fashion as devotedly as children chase ice cream trucks. We for sure don’t quite get the notion that having a baby is a risky, somewhat shameful action for a young woman to take.
Thus this show might take off like a rocket in the Los Angeles area, maybe even in California. The females in Iowa aren’t going to get it.
For the main character in this comedy and her husband decided to go on and have a baby of their own no matter how uncool it might be. This couple is surrounded by other super cool characters who too think this baby thing is gross. In the midst of all of this the expecting couple struggles to keep the simple biological act of bringing new life into the world on an even keel.
Hey, I said it was too deep for us simple folks in the Heartland.
I will say that the cast of this series could make a decent comedy series but with a different premise. Too many of us as of yet don’t regard the act of reproduction as reprehensible and unworthy of our fine selves.
But the characters do interact well, are clever, funny and bring a laugh or two to the parade.
Even though the notion of only the trailer park amongst us being so low as to reproduce is understood by the super-hip of Hollywood, it’s a notion that flies over the head of too many of us out here in the la-la land of mid-America.
The question then becomes…can California alone carry a hit comedy series to success?
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Focus on TV Posts of Fame
Those Wacky TV Chefs. Includes Rachel Ray and the sexiest chef of them all.
TV News Pundits including Russert, spitting Matthews and the one I adore.
"Dancing with the Stars" of 2007, reviews, pics and videos.
American Idol 2007 and The Bachelor. One night's review with links to all the others.
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