One New York Life

Almost cougar Jenna Elfman has a two-night stand with college-aged, second assistant to a rather important sous chef Nicolas Wright. Baby ensues.

The Good

• I was glad to see that they wrote Wright’s Zack as a guy who was willing to step-up and take care of the baby. I was sad to see that it was only because his dad ran out on him when he was a little boy. Just once could a guy stay because it’s the right thing to do?
• I can admit it had some genuinely funny moments. Jenna Elfman is a solid .270 hitter on sit-coms. She’s not going to win you any ballgames, but put her in the middle of a good lineup and she won’t disappoint.
• I do love the stoner-college friend Davis. He didn’t get much airtime in the Pilot, but plenty in the second episode.

The Bad

• Remember, Billie’s Scottish friend totally isn’t Samantha because she’s a reporter and has an accent and lives in San Francisco!
• I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel for Elfman’s Billie. On one hand, she seems like a nice enough person. On the other, she hangs out in a relationship with a rich dude (Grant Show’s Zack — the owner of her newspaper) for three years waiting for him to propose when he made it clear he doesn’t want to be married. Then she has a one night stand, gets pregnant, and has a momentary romantic thing with the guy. Then, in her office, has a whole conversation with her friend about how she wants “the house and the checkbook”. This is sympathetic?
• Maybe I’m just tired of the “woe is me” late 30s female character who is sad she’s single because I know different versions of this woman. The whole thing of “I can’t believe I’m not married yet. What? Oh, I had a date last night but he didn’t even make six-figures. He wasn’t a 6’4″, well-muscled, investment banker who respects my career and is totally manly except for the whole wanting a wife at home thing and when I need him to build stuff but also sensitive and stylish and will commute two-hours in to the city so I can raise little Leo and Hazel in a neighborhood with a white picket fence but still close enough that I can get a city quality personal pilates trainer and a Mormon nanny for the kids.” Was that too bitter a run-on?
• Oh and the whole exchange between her and her sister that “maybe she kinda did this a little on purpose”? So this poor guy is just a tool in your selfish quest to have a baby? I’m sure what he wanted out of life wasn’t important — like, you know, his lifelong dream of going to culinary school which he can’t do now.

The Rest

Does this strike anyone else as more the plot of a romantic comedy then a seasonal sitcom? And wasn’t it called Knocked Up. Like… how much mileage can they really get from this? I’ll grant that the clash of two different age groups has its funny moments — like James’s “I don’t know how was in your day, but these days girls tell us when they’re not on the pill” line.

It’s a slightly more creative version of the done-to-death smart woman/dumb guy sitcom that I’ve actively boycotted since Everybody Loves Raymond. By the end of Raymond‘s run, I hated Patricia Heaton so much that I STILL can’t watch anything with her in it. And where does this one-note joke go after the baby is born?

I’m pretty sure I’m just not that in to it.