Hey, Lauren Graham. Damn, girl, where have you been? You look great, by the way. What’s Rory up to these days? Wait, shoot, fiction-reality, reality-fiction. Though, looks like I will be happily blurring those lines again now that you’ll be returning to TV as the star of a new series.
According to Variety, the as-yet-untitled half-hour sitcom has Lauren playing a self-help guru who “teaches women how to live a stress-free life — but struggles to follow her own advice when her boyfriend dumps her.” I like the teaching women part. I’m not sure about the struggling-after-being-dumped-by—her-boyfriend part. Also, it will take a little getting used to seeing Lauren on TV without Alexis Bledel.
Giving me even more pause is that Lauren has signed her production deal with ABC. You know, the channel that fired Brooke Smith and canceled Pushing Daisies. Just when I thought I was out, ABC tries to pull me back in.
But making me happier, once again, is the creative team behind the project. The show features Will & Grace‘s Alex Herschlag and Arrested Development‘s Mitchell Hurwitz among its executive producers. That’s a pretty impressive pedigree of funny. As long as they make good use of Lauren’s ability to crack wise while talking quickly, it’s hard to see how they could go wrong.
Plus the men also score high in the lesbian equivalent of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. They both worked on past projects with Ellen DeGeneres — Herschlag on her first sitcom, Ellen, and Hurwitz on her short-lived second sitcom, The Ellen Show. Come to think of it, Lauren has been a regular guest on Ellen’s talk show, too. Shoot, Ellen should ask for a producer credit or at very least a thank you in the credits.
No word yet on when the new show will air, but before Lauren makes her return to TV, she will make her debut on Broadway in the revival of Guys and Dolls. The musical starts previews in February and opens in March with Lauren as the female lead, Miss Adelaide. That should also be interesting, too, since I’ve seen Lauren sing on Ellen.
Actually, I’m sure she’ll do great since I’m pretty sure “Leaving on a Jet Plane” isn’t one of the numbers.
So, what do you think? Will you be watching this girl return to TV Gilmore-less?
