YOUNGER: Tuesday 10PM on TV Land
Although it’s a half-hour rather than an hour, TV Land’s new YOUNGER feels somewhat similar to VH1’s recent Hindsight. Both are series versions of high concepts that might have been feature films starring, say, Sandra Bullock, a decade or so ago, and both revolve around women on the cusp of middle age who have a chance to be young again: through magical time-travel on Hindsight, and via a more mundane makeover on Younger. (Also, both shows are attempting to open a new door of content for their networks: Hindsight as VH1’s first scripted series, and Younger as one of TVLand’s first original single camera comedies.) At first glance–and second, since TV Land is presenting its first two episodes back to back tonight–Younger is more polished (it’s the creation of Darren Star. the man behind Sex and the City), but perhaps less interesting.
The set-up is fairly simple. Liza (Sutton Foster, the Broadway star who for some of us will always and forever be the radiant center of the late and much-lamented Bunheads) is the 40-year old mother of a teen daughter. Liza abandoned her ambitions of a career in publishing for family, but now the family has fallen apart, thanks to an ex who gambled away all their money and cheated on her, and Liza needs to go back to work. However, 40-year olds who haven’t worked in more than a decade aren’t exactly marketable, and Liza finds herself being turned down for the entry-level jobs that are all she’s qualified to do. And then, eureka! Hot young stranger Josh (Nico Tortorella) mistakes Liza not just for a woman in her 20s, but one he finds alluring, and with the help of pal Maggie (Debi Mazar), Liza is soon masquerading as a 26-year old and promptly employed, working for gorgonesque boss Diana (Miriam Shor), and honing a friendship with genuinely young co-worker Kelsey (Hilary Duff). This being a Darren Star show, the potential for sex with guys like tattoo artist Josh isn’t ignored either.
That’s about all there is to Younger. Most of the humor revolves around Liza narrowly avoiding being caught in her ruse as she tries to get her head around new-fangled current mores like Twitter and pubic grooming, and her triumphs come when she adapts her more experienced world-view to the multiplatform existence she finds herself living. (In Episode 2, she finds a way to use hashtags to promote a Joyce Carol Oates book.) There’s nothing in Star’s quippy dialogue that compares to the arias of repartee that Amy Sherman-Palladino provided in Bunheads, but Younger plays to Foster’s signature move: the fluster that turns into a quirky insight. Whether or not a new hairstyle and some trendy outfits are enough to make Foster an utterly convincing 26-year old, she brings a lot of warmth to a gimmicky role, especially in her developing friendship with Kelsey. You root for her, and thus you root for Liza and the series.
Although TV Land has had successes with original comedies like Hot In Cleveland, Younger is aiming at a–well, less autumnal audience, as well as a more affluent one, the kind advertisers will pay premiums to get. Landing a Darren Star project can’t have come cheap, and unlike most of the basic cable shows set in New York (including Hindsight), Younger is actually shot there. Star is a pro, and Younger glides along, easing past its contrivances in a likable way. So far, there’s little of the rueful edge that underlies Hindsight, where the characters are more vulnerable, and their regrets aren’t just punchlines. In a comedy season that’s light on charm, though, Younger, like its heroine, can pass quite nicely.
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