Phenom

It was a shame ABC axed this show after one season, I bet if it was on longer a bigger audience would have been built. Either way, Phenom is a gem. It's a sitcom with some good morals, and is funny without being too corny. The acting is also top notch. I am thankful I do have about every episode on tape, and I occasionally do hold mini marathons where I watch them. The series focused on Angela Doolan, a 16 year old tennis ace. She came across problems all teenagers face: family, friends, pressure and her overbearing coach. I even went to a taping of this show (if you see the episode where Coach Lou's friend dies, listen closely to hear a stupid fake laugh, that's me). I swear, if I had enough money I'd buy the episodes/rights from Columbia themselves (okay I am going nuts). Maybe the Fox Family Channel or Disney or some cable channel will somehow notice this show and buy them and broadcast the episodes. If you ever get a chance to see this show, see it and enjoy. Oh yeah, whatever happened to Angela Goethals?

I thought Phenom was great. It had snappy one liners, good scenes and characters and wasn't limited to 30 second clips of jokes to pad it out. I was at college at the time and around 25 and I still found it funny and fresh, and watchable on several levels. I've not seen it since either in repeats in the UK or on DVD or on satellite shows - which is a great sadness. We have Knight Rider and even Autocar (groan) which are played regularly and available on DVD. I've no idea ow many series were shown on TV but I'm sure they could fit on a single 2-disc release. Bring it back and bring it out on DVD. Todd Louiso is a hunk in it, too.

The premise for the t.v. show "Phenom" was actually pretty original but the show was not particularly amazing. It was just ok. What I found myself tuning in to see was the older brother character played by Todd Louiso. He was neurotic and funny, not to mention much less gifted than the main character (played by Angela Goethals). He was a very original character for a sitcom. I was pleasantly surprised to see Louiso pop up recently in "High Fidelity" as one of John Cusack's record store employees. Louiso and Jack Black were great together! Check out "Phenom" if it's ever on t.v. for Todd Louiso.

This was an awesome sitcom. If I had realized how short lived it would be at the time that it was on I would have gone to great pains to tape them all. As it is I only have two or three. It was just really well done: creative premise, very funny script, good actors, etc. > And if you ever get a chance to watch any of this great show, take it because you won't regret it! I am really surprised that some of the actors didn't go on to bigger things. I looked over their credits and they really have not done much since...except the aforementioned spots on Jerry McGuire, which I was pretty excited about when I saw :-). The little girl (Mary Margaret) especially was very good...so maybe she will pop up again somewhere. Anyway, I guess that is all. This was just a GREAT show.

The weirdest happened to me today. Out of nowhere, I had this image pop into my mind about some show I used to watch in college, where there was a tennis girl played by the crazy daughter of the CTU boss in Season 4 of 24, and her coach was played by the Secretary of Defense in that same season of 24... and that's all I could remember, and it was driving me nuts! Finally, I realized it was Phenom that I had watched many years ago. I'm so glad I had this freaky random flashback, otherwise I would have forgot all about this show. The first thing I did was go to TVshowsonDVD.com, and I was so disappointed it's not out there on DVD. It was an awesome show! The ABC Family channel has many back-to-back reruns they do for the same show everyday for other 90's sitcoms, like Family Matters, Full House, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch... they have more than enough room to squeeze Phenom in there.