the premise: two woman die at the same time [or sometime thereabouts]. one is this really smart, low-confident, self-help-reading, overweight lawyer. the other is a really shallow, really smart.. err, knowledgeable about fashion, [at least not skinny but] toned ditz whose fate on judgment day is up in the air as she had done nothing 'good' or 'bad' in life making heaven or hell a toss up. [the stereotypical differences basically resolve the question brought up in 'when harry met sally': can a woman be smart and attractive?..]
in the end, by a press of a button of her own doing, the blonde ends up reincarnated as the aforementioned overweight opposite. she continues to have the knowledge/memory of her ditz-self as well as the smarts of the former inhabitant's.
ok, so we've seen this before, to some extent-- personalities in different bodies: like father like son, big, freaky friday, 13 going on 30, 17 again, to name a few. but the difference between this show and these examples, aside from tv vs. movie, is the body switch: the outer-body experience is not age-related but weight-related... could we expect anything less from a woman's channel?. but o weight, i mean, o wait. memory just decided to serve me-- shallow hal: gwyneth paltrow in a fat suit. so, oops, it has been done. what, then, is my beef? i guess the difference then is that gwyneth played both her 'hollywood-sized regular' self and her same character's self in a fat suit, whereas in this show it's a woman experiencing life in another real' [in tv land] woman's body played by a real woman in reality. that is, in [hopefully more comprehensible] english, the characters are two different women played by two different women.
so here's my beef: multiple times in this hour-long episode, they have this larger, portrayed as less attractive, woman see her own reflection and act totally disgusted [..to tears..] by what she sees, cause remember, she's playing a supposed gorgeous knockout blonde in her.. well, real, not.. blonde body.. was her [the shallow blonde ditz's] undecidable fate of heaven or hell really a toss up or was *hell*[period] her decided fate since she thereafter became reincarnated as this larger woman? moreover, what effect did/does this have on the lead actress herself playing this character? when it comes to acting, so i hear, it helps to really embody/feel what the character feels to make the most believable portrayal. if what i hear is accurate, then, man, i think that's a sign of strength? or real self-assurance? or something.. to do/be that all day, go home in the same unremoveable body 'suit', only to wake up and do it again.
the show has some potential though, i think. the teasers show a number of guest appearances and... psha, i'm writing about it aren't i?.. yeah right. not. but i'll likely be watching it next week..
