Lush Life
((Mon. (9), 9:30-10 p.m., Fox))
Cast: Lori Petty, Karyn Parsons, Sullivan Walker, Fab Filippo, Concetta Tomei, Khalil Kain, John Ortiz.
Think "Thelma and Louise" as envisioned by David Lynch.
The good news: Petty and Parsons have chemistry to burn. The bad news: They burn it. And as co-creators, producers and writers (along with Yvette Lee Bowser), they have only themselves to blame.
Petty is Georgette "George" Sanders, an off-center free spirit who naturally lives in a cluttered apartment in Venice and sports an agreeably aggressive, zestful nature. Unfortunately, she also has weirdly bleached, Annie Lennox-style hair, and watching her, that's pretty much all you can think about.
Does she have punk ambitions? Head lice? Some sort of root disorder?
The scary part is that someone had to tell her this 'do was a really good idea.
By contrast, Parsons, as pal Margot Hines, has more hair than she knows what to do with, styled by a beautician whose meter was evidently about to expire. Call it the just-escaped-a-skyscraper-fire look.
As the show opens, Margot is in a panic because her no-good jerk of a husband just admitted sleeping with a bimbo flight attendant, and now that she's left him her chief worry is the same one that concerns most characters in Fox shows: How will she get laid?
George assures her that she's better off without him, the sex will come, men are pigs anyway, and that her chief responsibility in life is to go out and have a good time.
Margot responds that, well, yeah, that sounds good. But it's already been three hours. Where can she get some sex already?
"Lush Life" shows moderate potential in its characters but zero in its plot development. TV needs more shows that play up women as doers rather than victims , and Petty and Parsons connect well. But their positive spirit gets swallowed in a sea of lame dialogue that transforms them into doltish rebel wannabes.
I am woman, hear me grouse.
Camera, George La Fountaine; editors, Jerry Davis, Dennis C. Vejar; art director, Bernie Vyzga; sound, Larry Stephens; music, Bill Maxwell; theme, Louis Metoyer; casting, Leslie Litt.
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