First Look: Will The New Absolutely Fabulous Be Absolutely Awful?
Ubiquitous
We can't say how this happened, but we've seen script pages from the
pilot episode of the new Absolutely Fabulous, starring Kristen Johnston
and Kathryn Hahn.
Kristen Johnston, whom you may know from Third Rock or Music And Lyrics,
will play Patsy. Kathryn Hahn, who was in Crossing Jordan, Revolutionary
Road and Anchorman, is Edina. Ready for spoilers? Here goes:
The premise is very close to the UK version of Ab Fab, except the ladies
live in Los Angeles. Eddie is described as "an attention-hungry woman
who tries too hard to look beautiful." Patsy is described as "an
imperious woman who loves to intimidate. She could be forty or
sixty-five, it's LA, hard to tell." Eddie is in PR; Patsy is in fashion.
In the opening scene, a "gorgeous African-American woman" named
Novelette delivers water to Eddie's home; Eddie decides, on the spot, to
hire her as an assistant. Unlike the air-headed Bubble in the UK
version, Novelette is quick, smart and competent. And black! Patsy has
no idea how to deal with this; when Novelette says something like,
"Wonderful to meet you, Ms. Stone," Patsy replies, "It's all good, dog."
In addition, Eddie tries not to act shocked when she discovers that
Novelette can ski. in other words, the character exists mostly to make
Edina and Patsy look like fools.
Of course, looking like fools is something Patsy and Edina do without
any help: The script has Eddie announcing that she's "doing a cleanse"
in order to go shrink her size 6 form to fit into size zero designer
samples; Patsy uses the phrase "that's not the way I roll," the ladies
smoke where they're not supposed to and make inappropriate, suggestive
comments to a cute 16-year-old boy — a friend of Saffron's, naturally.
That gimmick is straight out of the UK version, as is most of the plot
of the pilot, which involves a charity dinner for which Eddie wants
"names." She's only throwing the dinner because she's dropped off of
some magazine's list; Saffron speculates it's because "the world has
changed and you've been in a pill and Chardonnay fog." The zeitgeist is
all about humanitarianism, she scolds. There's an incident in which
Eddie, caught smoking, sprays mace in a cop's eyes, and Patsy
"accidentally" stabs a chef in the hand — only alarmed that his blood is
getting on Eddie's couture skirt. Some of the gags — like the ladies
watching the clock and waiting for the minute hand to hit noon before
drinking wine — seem extremely played out. (Didn't Cloris Leachman do
that in Spanglish? Also, why would Edina and Patsy care what time it is?
If there's a drink to be drunk, they'll oblige!)
The interesting angle is where the UK AbFab often flashed back to Edina
and Patsy's hazy hippie druggy '60s and '70s past, the American version
seems to allude to Patsy and Edina's '80s L.A. rock and roll druggy
past. It could be funny to explore these women as former Motley Crue or
G'N'R fans.
Unfortunately, in the end, understanding that it was just a draft, the
script didn't seem as funny or irreverent as the original. (Kristen
Johnston told Entertainment Weekly: "It's one of those scripts that's
like my favorite kind because on paper you're like, Oh, this is funny,
but when you read it out loud with two actresses, it's, like, the
funniest shit ever.") While it's easy to transplant shallow,
self-absorbed characters to Los Angeles, will the rapid-fire British
humor translate? (A post on Mental Floss reminds us of British shows
that didn't make it on this side of the pond, like Coupling and an
American version of Fawlty Towers. Did you know that Roseanne Barr
originally bought the rights to Ab Fab?) And let's not forget: The UK
version of Ab Fab had something the American version will never have:
The comedic geniuses of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley.
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
lukeb...@gmail.com
It will only have a chance for those who have never seen the original.
If you loved the original, you'll be highly, highly (!!) disappointed.
If you've seen the original and didn't care for it, it's more of the
same. It's on the NBC's Shannon/Blair 'Kath & Kim' DOOMED level!
Ubiquitous
>It will only have a chance for those who have never seen the original.
>If you loved the original, you'll be highly, highly (!!) disappointed.
>If you've seen the original and didn't care for it, it's more of the
>same. It's on the NBC's Shannon/Blair 'Kath & Kim' DOOMED level!
I concur but wanted to add that this show was at the height of its
popularity over a decade ago. The time to make an American version
has long since passed, IMHO.