Why do some shows feel so incredibly dated now? Watching the introduction to Friends in its syndicated amber, I physically cringe with embarrassment. Why did I ever watch this? I wonder. And why are they dressed like that? It's like coming face-to-face with a middle-school friend who still wants to listen to Jagged Little Pill on a loop, and to boot has married her 7th Grade boyfriend. Maybe it's because a show was so popular, defined an era and a sensibility - people actually got that haircut, and people imitated Joey, and we actually all wore jeans like that. Hortense, high priestess of pop culture, had a good theory: "I think many shows go through these weird periods where the dated-factor hurts them and later helps them, because people start tuning into the show not as a relevant commentary on their lives, but as a reminder of what their lives were like at the time. You move from making fun of the show for being dated to making fun of yourself for the way you dressed/things you thought were cool in 1994, if that makes any sense."

I agree, but some shows are definitely more prone to it than others Seinfeld, which always existed out of time and never had anything to do with any discernible fashions of the moment, doesn't have the cringe factor, even if it's mellowed from must-see to Raymond-reliable. And Sex and the City, even if it dates itself from season-to-season, feels like a time capsule - like a 2001 Spring collection or something, albeit one you wouldn't have worn. Watching it, you know that they, too, (were they real and not 2-dimensional and underwritten) would scorn to wear a name necklace or an enormous flower or the weirdly androgynous wardrobe they saddled Cynthia Nixon with in early episodes. And, that said, I'd still find it very odd if someone replicated one of the glass-and-steel Cosmo palaces they visited on the show; those locations looked quite bad enough at the time.

Other shows, for me at least, age well. When the Gilmore Girls was on, I despised it. I was very vocal and annoying about it, too, and any timid endorsement would be met with a stream of criticisms of the preciousness, the ersatz cleverness, the incredibly grating, colorful townsfolk, the cutesy vocal scoring. Did I watch it regularly? Of course - the better to dismiss it with. And then I caught it in syndication a few months ago and was totally riveted. The character of Rory was so smart and serious! The references were sometimes clever! Was it saccharine and frequently twee? Yes - but in a world where Glee is hailed as brilliant, it started to look like early Arthur Miller. It seemed I was not alone. Two of my friends mentioned to me recently that they've fallen into belated love with Gilmore Girls. "It's sad," said one, "that as a 30-something woman, the only thing I can relate to is a ten-year-old show about a teenager."

Maybe Hortense is right, and when another ten years have passed, Friends will start to feel nostalgic and even iconic. But I'm just not sure it's good enough. I suspect things have to be really good - like My So-Called Life - or Saved by the Bell campy to really pass into the firmament. That's why this Central Perk seems so weird - it would be one thing if this had opened during the show's heyday. Surely most 20-somethings know it at least as well as a syndication bolster, and Jennifer Aniston as much as Professional Sad-Sack as hair role-model. Maybe it's strange, too, because the studio-set New York in Friends was so artificial, and I wasn't familiar with any comparable yuppie-havens; nor, had one existed, would I have wanted to patronize it. But what do I know? Apparently the place is going gangbusters, even though it's coffee-only in a tea town. And as for the "iconic orange couch," well, "there is no possibility of getting comfortable there, due to the constant disruption of people wanting their photographs taken on it."

Cafe Opening Stimulates Friends Fans [BBC]

Los Angeles Times:

...Upon viewing the pilot and an early episode, it is impossible not to feel a little ripped off. Like getting the Tiffany box, with the white satin bow, and opening it to find... a Starbucks gift card. For 10 bucks. There are worse gifts you could get, sure, and there are worse shows than Jezebel James... The problem is that from these folks you expect a fascinating female lead, but you get instead every uptight, cellphone-clenching, relationship-avoiding, food-issue-riven working woman you've ever seen (and never met).

Among the disillusioning aspects of the new comedy The Return of Jezebel James is the presence of a laugh track, there as if it were a spoonful of peanut butter on a pizza. What business does it have? The question arises because Jezebel is the creation of Amy Sherman-Palladino, a writer who has set her own standards far above convention. On her previous venture, the great, departed Gilmore Girls, the funny lines — about Norman Mailer, Noam Chomsky, Christiane Amanpour, well-known newspaper editors, op-ed columnists, old movies, Susan Faludi — came with such velocity that no laugh track would ever have been able to keep up.

There is too little Ambrose/Posey interaction in the pilot, but in the second episode — when Coco moves in and the two start haggling over the surrogacy contract — Sherman-Palladino's knack for chick dialogue shows some of its old promise. Alas...stories from the just-had-a-baby/about-to-have-a-baby dynamic are rarely as funny as Sex and the City. Or even Friends (remember: Rachel essentially had to put baby Emma in the closet with her purse collection to keep that show going a few more seasons)... Will Jezebel last long enough for the little rugrat to get born?

Perhaps because of the need to establish the premise, Sherman-Palladino doesn't allow Sarah to become anything approaching a flesh-and-blood character, racing from set-up to punchline without much emotion, disappointment or anything else that might humanize her. Nor does Coco fare especially well in the pilot, and a second half-hour (the two are airing together to create a one-hour premiere) proves equally irritating, as they squabble through a meeting to hash out their surrogacy agreement.

Shows like [Gilmore Girls] are something rare, as Fox's The Return of Jezebel James amply demonstrates. In this new sitcom, the stories are exaggerated, the premise is incredible and the chemistry is almost nonexistent.

Although Jezebel is packed with Sherman-Palladino's trademark snappy banter, it's a cold, brittle misfire. Fast-paced, tart dialogue isn't enough to sustain a show if the people reeling it off aren't worth spending time with.

Sherman-Palladino forces the sisters on each other out of an almost crippling sense of joint self-interest that's as painful as it is illogical. Supposedly, the two bond when Sarah tells Coco the name of her new book series: Jezebel James, after Coco's childhood imaginary friend. It's weak grounds for motherhood, and even weaker for comedy.

Earlier: The Return Of Jezebel James: Possibly Disappointing