The Return of Jezebel James

… T minus 2 days, and counting…

The Return of Jezebel James premiers Friday, March 14.

Frankly, this article doesn’t surprise me, because Amy Sherman-Palladino has always maintained that The Return of Jezebel James was an “experiment” and a return to her roots.

What it boils down to, I think, is that Jezebel James represents Amy’s vision, as Gilmore Girls also did. (It was clear even from the early seasons that the Gilmore Girls story was being shaped and shepherded by a behind-the-scenes visionary.) Now that Amy’s implementing her next vision, I hope she doesn’t read most of the reviews out there, who almost uniformly complain about—of all things—the laugh track.

Still, I’m glad that she addressed it. And I have to say that I’m glad she agrees with me:

The sitcom form is not dead, she insisted. Laugh tracks get a bad rap.

“Audiences get in a groove. They laugh at things you don’t think are funny. You’re like, ’That’s not funny, stop it.’ But they’re in that groove, and they’re so excited, so willing to laugh — I don’t know what’s going on at home with them — that they do. It’s fun to hear. A live audience is always going to throw a couple of curve balls at you, too, no matter how well you think you know what you’ve written. That’s the fun of sitcoms, baby.”

The article also has some parts about Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose, but nothing I haven’t read before.

Enjoy!
-TimK

This article talking about Amy Sherman-Palladino, from Gilmore Girls and now into Jezebel James—and how the latter got to be filmed in New York… This article is deep, engaging, and witty as all get out. (Reminds me a bit of Amy’s work.)

Here’s a snippet:

During a fire drill, she recalled, [Amy’s] mannequin was mistaken for a living, breathing person by crew members and firefighters who gathered on the street. But no one dashed into the building to rescue her.

“They naturally thought it was you,” Mr. Palladino said.

Catch the whole article here.

-TimK

Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband and co-producer Daniel were on a panel at this month’s Television Critics Association tour, along with Parker Posey, Lauren Ambrose, and Scott Cohen. Click to continue »

Less than 2 years ago, Amy Sherman-Palladino was producing Gilmore Girls, a TV series set in a tiny Connecticut town, about 2 hours out of New York City. Like most television programs, Gilmore Girls was filmed in the Hollywood area, on a Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, CA.

Now Amy and her husband and fellow show-runner Dan Palladino are moving to New York, as Lauren Graham let on in a recent on-line chat. Part of a growing exodus from Hollywood, they are moving in order to produce their new project The Return of Jezebel James. Click to continue »