Then Came You

It took me a while to remember what this show was about. I never could quite grasp its concept. Or why it was considered funny. It just seemed so utterly implausible.

The romantic relationship between the two main characters was not plausible.

And the "older" woman was not that old, she was only in her early 30s. Someone in their early 30s dating someone in their 20s is not exactly unusual.

For those of you that blinked and missed the few episodes aired, the premise of this show was a divorced professional woman in her thirties living in a posh hotel who becomes involved with a considerably younger hotel worker. Of course you are going "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" at this point and I'm sure this is what ABC was hoping to accomplish. The concept is much more interesting than the execution; witness the short lifespan of this show. The two lead characters are about the same ages as my husband and me when we first met, so I feel well qualified to judge this show. Quite honestly, the only way anyone would have been able to maintain the physical standards implied on this show is to have absolutely have no outside life or obligations whatsoever and be wealthy enough to go live in a hotel and not do much else. You do not root for this couple because you cannot fathom how they could possibly have any sort of future together outside of a hotel room. You do not sense any sort of emotional connection or attraction. For the sake of realism, it would be refreshing if we heard a realistic ambiguity from Billie, such as "Oh my gosh, I can't believe that when I was a college freshman you were in kindergarten!" The whole younger man/older woman concept is used here for titillation purposes mostly. I do not expect it to be a politically correct vehicle to show how these relationships can actually work, but making it so shallow helped to determine its doomed fate. This show, or atleast the premise, would have been better suited to a something in the vein of "Once and Again." It can be done with some romance, drama, a touch of humor and emotion, and the concept hasn't been beaten to death, either.

Well, this show came out at the same time as some of those awful shows ABC was churning out in the late 90's ("It's like, You Know" + "Dharma and Greg") . It went unnoticed by most people, partly because it wasn't advertised. This should be on today, considering the fact that "My wife and kids" is the highest-rated show on ABC. In ABC's heyday, "My Wife + Kids"'s ratings would have gotten it canceled in a week. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. This was the better of any show to come out that year.

If ABC had any brains whatsoever, they would have known what a great competetor this would have been with NBC's Thursday Nights. Try good Ads, buddies. Oh well. I would definitely give this about a 7.5/10, even though I only saw about 3 episodes. ABC is certainly one chaotic mess right now.