Time of Your Life

Note: This is one of my list of the 400 Most Notable TV Shows Set in New York City, in honor of the 400th Anniversary of the founding of NYC - the full explanation and list of titles can be found by clicking my username (DeanNYC) and looking for the list on my Profile Page.

Reviews of each show are being posted under their respective titles.

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The series "Party of Five" was a big deal in its first couple of seasons. It was intriguing because the Salinger family of San Francisco, essentially kids (though granted most of the actors were playing a lot younger than their actual ages), were orphans and trying to both put food on the table (quite literally, as they ran a restaurant), and get through their scholastics while holding their tenuous family circumstances together.

It had elements of a soap opera to it with the drama of Child Protective Services possibly coming in to end it all if eldest sibling Charlie wasn't living up to their requisite expectations, in addition to all of the standard teen issues you would expect with junior high and high schoolers under normal conditions.

Eventually younger brother Bailey, played by Scott Wolf, got into a relationship with a girl named Sarah, and it looked like they might be headed to an engagement. But it broke off. And Sarah, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt, did something drastic. She left San Francisco for New York.

We were told that the reason why she left was because she was in pursuit of information about her birth parents, who were New Yorkers - she was chasing her roots.

There also was a question about whether this might have been an "absence makes the heart grow fonder" situation. After all, we were told this was only going to be a temporary exploration and Sarah seemed to want to get back with Bailey.

To be sure, there were a few episodes where that search for parental facts was the focus. But it seemed like that took a back seat to most of the actual stories we got.

For the late 1990s early 2000s, maybe Sarah wasn't completely prepared for the culture shock the move she made would create. More importantly, neither were the writers of this series. Sarah fell into a bohemian lifestyle with an apartment, new friends, new co-workers at her waitressing job just down the block from her dwelling, her attempts to become a recording artist (which may have been a nod to Hewitt's actual, and mostly unsuccessful, attempts to get her own singing career going in the US) a few love interests and all of the elements of randomness, oddities and potential trouble that come with life in The City.

Part of the problem was that Sarah wasn't particularly well-developed... as a CHARACTER, so she wasn't really an ideal candidate to be the star of this show. No offense to Ms. Hewitt, who has had a pretty decent career and can currently be seen on "9-1-1" (after Fox canceled it, the Alphabet Network snapped it up). But her acting at the time was not of the same level as "Felicity" star, Keri Russell, and that hurt the program, certainly by comparison.

It also didn't help that a couple of co-stars, Jennifer Garner, who was actually playing an aspiring actress, and Pauley Perrette, who was an up-and-coming model on the series, were very poorly used. But, don't worry about them too much; they both found better opportunities relatively soon after this series.

New York played a part because of the flavor of the city, that sense that anything could happen, the connections of wealth and fame, seemingly just within your reach and the compromises one is willing to make to be able to be there.

Ultimately though, "Time of Your Life" was a case of a central character not having a central focus and without that, it was like a boat without a rudder. That's really why this didn't work out.

As a fan of "Party Of Five", I had to watch "Time Of Your Life" more as an obligation than for pleasure. "T of Y L" is for sure a hundred times worse than "Party of Five" and sometimes it's unbelievable and strange. And the problem is Sarah, Jennifer's character. She was almost married with Bailey, was dating him for years, lived in his house and then, in her second day in NY she decided to stay there!

Well, let's look at the beginning: Sarah was living with Bailey and decided to make a trip to New York to find her father. She would come back in five days. In the first night in NY she lost her baggage and money and found her mother's house. In the same night she was already living there. The next day she found a job in the bar, met 2 persons that could be her father, and one of the two was a very rich man. One night after it, she went to jail for not paying to the subway, and this rich man paid the surety and more than this, found her a very good job. Less than two days after it, she resigned the job because she was is NY for fun (poor Bailey)! No problem, she's will work in the bar (her 1st job, remember?). It's strange that they didn't put other person to work there, as she was already working in the job found by the rich man. Then, in the night, she just fight and scream with the rich man that was helping her a lot. Oh, and only after all those things she decided to phone Bailey! There is only one thing I know about Sarah: she's the most SELFISH person in the world. What a boring girl! And what a fast girl!

But Sarah is not the unique character there, although she appears during 90% of the time. And all these things doesn't mean that Time Of Your Life is bad and don't even mean that Sarah is bad. All the others are convincing and their stories are too much better. It's just ridiculous to give an entire TV-series for Jennifer Love Hewitt. She's cool, nice, fun but not famous (and talented) enough to have her own.

Not available to stream anywhere. Party of five got a shabby box set release. They should do a better one and include this season. America never got to see all the episodes.

I was such a huge fan of Jennifer Love Hewitt back in the late 90's.

But this show was so slow! It had boring plotlines. Nothing exciting ever happened.

On "Party Of Five," Jennifer Love Hewitt had a character named Sarah. Although this show was supposed to be a spin-off about Sarah, it seemed like this show was all about Jennifer Love Hewitt rather than her character Sarah.

It's a shame because Jennifer Love Hewitt totally ruled the late 90's. However, the most popular teen icon does not make up for crappy writing and slow plotlines.

Jennifer Garner also co-starred in this show. Who would have ever thought that she'd become the big screen queen she is today?

Sarah (Jennifer Love Hewitt) leaves San Francisco and the Salinger family to find her real father in New York. It´s the first time she stands on her own feet. "It´s the end of the world as we know it" - an old R.E.M. title - Sarah sang at the end of the pilot-episode. The song fits! "Time of your life" didn´t survive a long time. Why?! It was full of interesting characters!

Maybe I´m in the minority, but I don´t think that the focus of the show wasn´t too much on Sarah. There was enough space for the other characters to develop their own stories. Romy (Jennifer Garner), an actress who tries to find work, Maguire (Jonathon Schaech), the guy from the record-shop, who falls in love with Sarah, J.B. (Diego Serrano), a hairdresser who works at the edge of legality sometimes and falls in love with Romy, etc - they all try to find luck on their own way. I can especially remember episode 12 "The time everything changed" when Molly, a girlfriend of Romy died. I guess it was the most dramatic episode! Besides in Germany - where the show was called "New York life" - all 19 episodes were aired. So the american TV-audience will never know who Sarah´s real father is. It was a real touching moment when she met him....

"Time of your life" would have been a great alternative for "Party of five"-fans. Why didn´t they give the show a second chance?! It really had the potential for success! I can remember that "Party of five" was also a missuccess in the first season! It´s a shame that it was cancelled so soon!

Another great show on television that I will miss...