The Return of Jezebel James

The Return of Jezebel James is a new series, starring Parker Posey (the queen of indie film) and Lauren Ambrose (Claire of Six Feet Under), from the mind of Amy Sherman-Palladino. She and her husband Dan Palladino created the TV series Gilmore Girls and turned it into a world-wide phenomenon. But after Gilmore Girls finished its sixth season, negotiations broke down between the Palladinos and Warner Brothers. And Team Palladino left the series, which was never afterward the same.

But out of every death comes new life. Now the Palladinos are producing for Fox a new half-hour comedy, whose working title is The Return of Jezebel James.

The show airs Friday nights on Fox at 8:30 PM Eastern, premiering March 14, 2008 at 8 PM.

To get a better feel for the show, check out the various resources on this site.

Briefly, the show tells the story of Sarah Thomkins (Parker Posey). She works for a book publisher editing children’s books. She has always fought for what she wanted, whatever it took, and she’s always got it. As a result, she has a job she loves, with a great income, a wonderful assistant Buddy (Michael Arden), a no-strings-attached relationship with the perfect boyfriend Marcus (Scott Cohen)… Sarah has it all.

But there’s still something missing from her life. She is alone. So realizing that she’s not getting any younger, she decides it’s time for her to have a baby. Only there’s one problem. She is diagnosed with Asherman’s Syndrome, a disease that prevents her from conceiving.

At first, Sarah doesn’t want to admit that she can’t get pregnant. All the other options, such as adoption, are unacceptable to her. But that shouldn’t matter. After all, there’s nothing she hasn’t been able to accomplish once she put her mind to it. But this one is beyond her abilities.

Crushed and brokenhearted, she notices a book she’s been editing. It’s a book about Jezebel James, a character from her youth. You see, Jezebel James was her younger sister Coco’s childhood imaginary friend. Whenever Coco did something that got her into trouble, she’d say, “It wasn’t me. It was Jezebel James.”

Sarah gets an idea. She meets with Coco (Lauren Ambrose) and asks her to be surrogate mother to Sarah’s baby… Or at least that was the plan. That plan kind of gets foiled by the fact that Sarah and Coco do not get along. They are bitter antagonists. And almost before the words are out of Sarah’s mouth, she realizes it was probably a stupid idea. But she’s desperate.

And as it turns out, maybe there’s hope after all…

Watch for The Return of Jezebel James, Friday nights at 8:30 Eastern, on Fox.