Great Film overall

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I only watched the first episode - some people claim the show improved somewhat by the time it was canceled a couple of episodes later - but wow, that first episode was pretty disastrous.Written by Amy Sherman-Palladino, whose work on the Gilmore Girls was brilliant, and starring talented "indie queen" Parker Posey, on paper this was going to be great. But it wasn't. Posey's performance is shrill and brittle; she acts the whole episode as though she has realized she is in a bomb and hopes that if she talks loud enough and fast enough people won't notice. And while the writing isn't terrible, it's not especially funny.Which leads us to the laugh track. There is perhaps nothing so destructive to low-key witticisms than a boisterous laugh track. Sherman-Palladino is not a sitcom writer, and trying to persuade the public that she is by dropping huge laughs on every wry remark or deprecating comment just makes the show seem to be full of unfunny jokes. I had a similar reaction of Sports Night, another show where dry wit combined with loud laughs created nothing but dissonance (although my reaction to that show wasn't nearly as negative as my reaction to Jezebel James).So, if Posey were calmer and the laugh track were gone, would the show have been good? Maybe. I would be curious to see Jezebel James sans laugh track with Posey replaced by, say, Lauren Graham. My gut feeling is that it still wouldn't have worked - that Amy just couldn't find the rhythm of the half-hour sitcom - but I'm not sure. All I am sure of is that the network executive who insisted the show have a laugh track should have been demoted to a janitorial position.

While Gilmore Girls can never be beat, it's great that Amy Sherman Palladino is still making good t.v. shows. Obviously nothing tops Lorelei and Rory's incredible personalities, so Amy seems to have incorporated some of their quirks into the characters of 'The Return of Jezebel James'. There are many similarities in the characters and relationships to those in Gilmore Girls, starting even in the second episode with the fact that Sarah is crazy about Hello Kitty. Parker Posey even looks like Lorelei. Coco is very much a Rory to Sarah. Many of the lines and situations in 'Jezebel' could very easily have been in Gilmore Girls as well.The on screen chemistry looks slightly just like that; ON SCREEN. You can tell that they are acting, unlike in Gilmore Girls where the chemistry between all of the characters seems real. The worst thing about Palladino's new show is the laugh track. It kills anything funny! I'm sure that 'The Return of Jezebel James' would be a much better t.v. show without the uncomfortable fake laughter. It's just not 'Two and a Half Men'. 'Jezebel' is meant to be in the same style as Gilmore Girls, with the viewer's laughter only. Maybe the laugh track is there to try and separate Jezebel from the Gimore's. In summary: lose the laugh track. Over all, if 'The Return of Jezebel James' becomes better over the episodes, it may be a show worth watching every once in a while. Let's give it a chance.

Amy is BRILLIANT! Parker Posey and Lauren Ambrose in a sitcom together with "sisterly banter", is what I look forward to now every Friday evening. The collaboration of Parker Posey, Lauren Ambrose, and Amy's brilliant dialogue is GENIUS! The perfect premise of today's women unable to conceive, the love of sisters becoming reaquainted by childhood memories and unselfishness, and what a better way to title a show or tell a cute story by coalescing on a children's book. This show is everything a female in her late 20's and early 30's have always wanted to watch in a television comedy! I rarely watch television, but I love every aspect of this show. Genius, just genius!

I think that this show could be great. It just needs to slow down. Gilmore Girls had fast dialogue but the story lines were slowed down, more like how normal people interact. This is too sitcomy for me. I think this would be better as an hour long comedy and allow the characters to develop. I saw some of this shine through in the second episode, where Sarah was calm and gave Coco permission to open up as she was ready. I hope this makes sense. And I hope "they" read this, because they need to cut the laugh track. I don't understand why comments need to be ten lines long yet they don't want you to pad comments. That makes no sense. So I am just going to ramble until they accept my post.