'Jezebel James' Delivers a Sibling Surrogate

Sarah Tompkins has it all.

The late-thirtysomething children's book editor is top dog in her profession, with her very own line of children's books published by HarperCollins. Energetic, driven and a bit, uh, particular (read: neurotic), Sarah gets what she wants, when she wants it, exactly the way she wants it—whether the it in question is coffee or sex.

So when Sarah notices the loud ticking of her biological clock, she decides it's time to accessorize ... with a baby. "Sign me up. Seriously, I'm ready," she tells her doctor. "Ever since I've decided to do this, I've been so energized!"

Except that her body won't cooperate.

Intrauterine adhesions, her doctor informs her, mean she'll never be able to conceive. "What!?" she responds. "Are you telling me I can't get pregnant? No. I can." But ... she can't.

Enter Coco Tompkins, Sarah's younger sister.

Coco is the ugly duckling to Sarah's princess charming. Not quite homeless but nevertheless without a home (she's sleeping on a friend's couch), Coco is the quintessential Gen-X slacker: rootless, ambitionless, broke, unkempt and unwashed. Not to mention underappreciated by big sis. And she's got a musician ex-boyfriend in tow to round out the cliché.

Despite the years of estrangement between them, however, Sarah concludes Coco's the right person to be a surrogate mother for her. "I would pay you, of course," Sarah says. "It would be like a job. Like the time you sold lemonade to the neighbors."

Coco says no at first, but then relents when she discover that her sister has named a series of books after Coco's imaginary childhood friend, Jezebel James. For Coco, that small sign is enough to begin to melt the icy armor around her heart when it comes to her relationship with Sarah, and she agrees to have her sister's baby for her—and to move in with her for the duration of the pregnancy.

Strange, Strained and Sexual Situations
Situation comedies are, of course, all about the situation. And even though the presenting situation in Fox's The Return of Jezebel James is one sister asking another to be a maternal surrogate, the real situation is the story of their strained and strange relationship—as well as an assortment of other colorful relationships orbiting the primary storyline.

There's Sarah's no-questions-asked relationship with her pseudo-boyfriend, Marcus, for example. Following her breakup with another beau of nine years, the only thing Sarah wants from Marcus is good food and good sex.

"No talking," she tells him. "We have an agreement. No drama. No emotions. Just sex. We're sticking to that." But it's obvious that their physical intimacy (they're show in bed together) is inevitably drifting toward emotional intimacy as Sarah begins to tell Marcus about her baby plans. He responds by ordering 12 glasses of wine at a fancy restaurant. I told you this was a sitcom, right?

Family, Reloaded
The Return of Jezebel James is the latest project from writer/producer Amy Sherman-Palladino, who got her start as a staff writer for Roseanne and moved on to further acclaim as the creator and executive producer of Gilmore Girls. Sherman-Palladino's trademark style is evident in the way Jezebel's stars exchange witty, barbed repartee one moment and reveal unexpectedly poignant emotional vulnerability the next.

Sarah, for example, excels at getting what she wants by commanding everything and everyone around her to do her bidding. But when Coco initially resists the idea of being "knocked up with your baby, like I'm an incubator," Sarah breaks down and admits her reason for asking: "I'm broken. My insides aren't working properly." She goes on to tell Coco, "I just got it in my head that we're blood, you and me. I know we're not close, but we're still sisters. And I just thought that if you had the baby, it would be a little like me having it also."

Sex and the Single Girl
Poignancy doesn't last as long as pregnancy, though. Sex for its own sake, and for self-centered satisfaction, is a given for both Sarah and Coco. In just the two episodes I saw, there are references to three different kinds of birth control. Sarah and Coco aren't even remotely concerned about the possibility that the other is having casual sex. It's simply a given. And while this show isn't quite as sexually focused as, say, Sex and the City, the attitudes on display by the female stars aren't markedly different from those exhibited by Carrie Bradshaw and Co.

The idea of a career-minded woman having sex on her terms and contemplating raising a child on her own doesn't even merit a slightly raised eyebrow these days in our culture. And it certainly doesn't on TV—Murphy Brown is but a distant, hazy memory. Today, such choices simply get relabeled "non-traditional family," as if that moniker exempts anyone from questioning the wisdom of such an arrangement.

That's "wisdom" worth questioning, though, regardless of the feel-good spirit and kindred connections this new show's creator hopes will attract an audience.