ABC, Sat. 10-11pm
Let's face it. No one with any kind of life watches much TV on Saturday night. That's why the networks always try to schedule programming for the lonely-hearts on this evening--a strategy that works only sometimes.
Here's the premise: Jeremy Piven (who?) stars as the Roman God of Love who's lost his touch and is banished from Mount Olympus. (Oh, it gets better!) To return to godhood, he must work as a mortal and match 100 couples without use of his magic. Soon, he meets a sexy psychiatrist who woos him into her singles group therapy meetings, and that's when the fun begins...and, sadly, ends once the show is canned.
Ultimately derivative, this show borrowed its fanciful/optimistic theme from other more popular shows like "Touched By an Angel", "Quantum Leap", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Sabrina the Teen-Aged Witch" and "Bewitched". Then, to really complicate things, it mixed in elements of "Love Boat", "Fantasy Island", and "Dear John". The result was a mess, albeit a sweet, treacly mess.
TV Guide's Fall '98 Preview said: "Cupid's schemes could provide just the right tonic of Romantic escapism for a Saturday night." They were right. It "could" have done that. Instead, the only "escapism" it offered viewers was to get away from their television sets. |
