The Pilot Project: The Return Of Jezebel James

Oh, yeah! That was a thing! Is my new column looking at television shows and pilots that made almost no cultural impact whatsoever; pieces of television that nobody cares about and that disappeared without a trace. Rather than an extended exercise in schadenfreude, I hope these articles have something to say about the landscape in which these projects failed and may shine a light on some forgotten gems. Let’s get dusting off those film reels!

The Return of Jezebel James

Originally aired on Fox March 14th 2008

Created By: Amy Sherman-Palladino

Stars: Parker Posey, Lauren Ambrose and Scott Cohen

Aired 3 episodes before being cancelled

I have watched the first three episodes of The Return of Jezebel James more times than anybody should. This is not because they are great pieces of television, it’s not even because they are so bad that they beg to be re-watched. It’s just that the show is so strange. The premise of the show is bonkers. The performances feel like extended pranks. The dialogue is outrageous. It is what I imagine would happen if aliens watched a bunch of sitcoms and decided to create their own, tacking pieces of the shows they had seen together but failing to understand what made them work in the first place. The end-product is aggressive and deranged, veering wildly between tones and styles without really stopping to ask itself whether any of it working. It’s a Frankenstein sitcom in romantic comedy clothing.

The plot goes like this. Sarah Tomkins (Parker Posey) is a successful children’s book editor who has just ended a ten-year relationship with her boyfriend. Inspired by the granddaughter of one of her co-workers she decides that she wants to have a baby via artificial insemination, but discovers that she suffers from Asherman’s syndrome, which makes conceiving a child impossible for her. Determined to have a baby Sarah contacts her estranged, free spirited younger sister Coco (Lauren Ambrose) and asks her to be a surrogate. Coco is initially shocked and refuses, but agrees when she discovers that Sarah commissioned a series of children’s books that celebrated Coco’s childhood imaginary friend. They move in together and wacky sitcom hijinks ensue.

The problems with the show are numerous, but the central premise is at the root of why the episodes do not work. Almost nothing about the plot mechanics ring true; Coco is convinced to carry her sister’s child within a ten second exchange of dialogue, Sarah dismisses the idea of adoption in a short and offensive diatribe about stranger’s using her toilet and the sister’s often come across as strangers rather than family. The lead’s decisions feel irrational and illogical rather than the actions of woman who want to help each other and feel a responsibility for each other’s happiness. As a viewer, you get the sense that Sherman-Palladino is trying to set up an odd-couple dynamic; ordered and stiff Sarah vs wild and lost Coco, but she doesn’t give them enough screen time together for the audience to really feel that.

The script does not show Sarah deciding to ask her sister for help. Nor do we get to see Sarah weighing up the pros and cons of this form of surrogacy. In fact, the show seems hell-bent on keeping the most interesting aspects of the story from the audience. This has the unfortunate side effect of making Sarah seem flippant and ridiculous; the pain of her diagnosis doesn’t land and her desperation to be a mother isn’t really explored, so the whole enterprise falls flat. You are left to wonder what Sarah’s life has been like, why she didn’t discuss motherhood with her former boyfriend, whether she feels that her career has been an adequate replacement for motherhood and how she imagines the addition of a baby will change the landscape of her life. It is only when the show takes the time to explore these issues, which is does only fleetingly and sporadically, that anything really interesting emerges. At times, the show feels like it is set in a different world; Sarah’s house is so outlandishly big that it should be some kind of joke and there is a sort-of romantic subplot that is forced enough that it feels like a rom-com parody.

The feminist website Jezebel criticised the show for perpetuating the ‘barren career woman’ stereotype, which suggests that women have to choose between professional happiness and motherhood, but the show does do some interesting things with this trope. When Sarah receives the diagnosis, she instantly asks if she can speak to Asherman, the founder of her syndrome, and renegotiate the terms of her circumstances. She also tells an anecdote about the time that she learned to cartwheel in order to become a Cheerleader, despite her lack of acrobatic prowess. These might sound flippant, jokey and ridiculous here — but they do have something to say about how a woman who has complete control of her appearance, her career and her surroundings deals with having the chance to conceive ripped from her. Her initial instinct is to take back the power from her own body, in the same way that she forced it to be able to cartwheel. Sarah’s instant need for control over her circumstances is a moving and insightful little peek into the central character and her interior life. Moments like this make The Return of Jezebel James so infuriating; potential practically leaps from the screen and it is not impossible to imagine the show as a refreshing and beautiful look at the sacrifices people are forced to make in the pursuit of familial happiness.

Parker Posey is a wonderful actress. Parker Posey is not a wonderful sitcom star. It is apparent from the first few moments of the pilot that she doesn’t understand the form, or that she does and wants to make fun of it. Watching her navigate the set-up-punch-line structure in fascinating and cringe inducing; she’s all loose limbs and prat falls, playing Sarah as if she’s a sketch character or part of a vaudevillian act. It looks as if Posey watched re-runs of I Love Lucy and decided that Lucille Ball’s physical comedy was too subtle; she mugs and weeps and laughs wildly throughout, turning all the emotional beats of the script up to 100. In his review of the pilot Noel Murray, of the AV Club, says that Posey comes off as drunk, and he’s not wrong. Each episode that was aired takes great pain to tell the audience how ordered and regimented Sarah is; how much she would benefit from a little of Coco’s abandon, but Posey refuses to follow suit with this characterisation. We’re told the character loves structure yet the performance is wild and slap-sticky and cluttered.

This is one of the most upsetting things about the failed sitcom because Posey has shown herself repeatedly to be such a wonderful comedic actress. The prospect of her being the lead in a show should be exciting. Her monologue in Drunks swings from funny to heart-breaking in seconds. She’s incredible in all the Christopher Guest movies, especially Waiting For Guffman. Everything she does in The House of Yes works better than the script should allow. Her guest stint on Louie was integral in creating some of the show’s finest episodes. When she turned up in the strange, and strangely compelling, Netflix show Granite Flats she gave it a shot of adrenaline. She is great in the romantic comedies You’ve Got Mail and Broken English. Yet here she seems both too invested and almost vacant; she can’t seem to land a punchline. Lauren Ambrose fares better, she manages to lean into the sitcom genre with a little less difficulty, but she is given less to do and her groundedness sometimes feels lethargic up against Parker’s maelstrom of crazy. Coco has less screen time and is therefore the less developed character, but she is a better defined and easier to get a handle of.

The show gets better as the three episodes progress and there are a collection of individual scenes that really work; the end of the pilot is genuinely emotional, there is a radio-play like patter to a riff on Bewitched and Parker’s strange energy works well in a scheme involving a Hello Kitty mobile and a leaking shower. However, nothing ever gels and the show never capitalises on the sadness and intrigue that lies at the heart of its story. There’s a spark here but it is buried by layers of awfulness; two actresses who appear to think they’re in different shows, a muddled tone and several plot missteps. The Return of Jezebel James was a put-pilot, which means that the network would have had to pay a penalty if it hadn’t shown it, suggesting that at one point everybody had a lot of faith in it. Amy Sherman-Palladino was coming off the critical and commercial success of Gilmore Girls, so it is easy to see why such talented people would have wanted to get involved with this project; but they probably wished that they hadn’t.

Worth watching? Parker’s performance is certainly….. something.

What did critics think at the time?

Potential pours from the screen, but the premiere has plenty of problems. People seem to be uncomfortable and trying too hard, just as they do on their first day in school or on the job.

-Jonathan Storm, Philadelphia Inquirer

Sadly, although Jezebel is packed with Sherman-Palladino’s trademark snappy banter, it’s a cold, brittle misfire.

-Maureen Ryan, Chicago Tribune

The show is a full-fledged Fox flop

• Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe

By Jay Bamber