John’s “Miss Match” flashback review, johnvhansen.com, July 27, 2017
“Miss Match” (2003, NBC), episodes 1-5 – Darren Star’s “Miss Match,” starring Alicia Silverstone as divorce attorney-cum-matchmaker Kate Fox, tries to solve the mysteries of the human heart. This is infinitely more interesting (and sometimes just as disturbing) than solving crimes.
True, Kate works at her father’s firm (“Hey advertisers, we’re a law show! People like law shows! Please advertise with us before we’re canceled!”). But since the pilot episode, Kate has been first and foremost a matchmaker. She tirelessly seeks out that special someone for her client or attempts to patch up a shaky relationship. And maybe this isn’t germane to the point, but Silverstone has only become more adorable since we last saw her in the 1999 dud “Blast from the Past.”
Kate deals with a variety of people — a sex-obsessed industry woman, a sensitive and muscular fruit vendor, a smart guy who’s helpless on dates, an estranged husband who needs to know why his wife left him, a dumped boyfriend who suspects his ex may have given birth to his child without telling him. Some characters are despicable, some are sympathetic, most are a bit of both.
The standard romance film is content to follow the 90-minute formula of “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl over misunderstanding, boy gets girl back.” “Miss Match” juggles two or three couplings — and sometimes Kate’s own troubled love life — in less than an hour, yet it feels more real than most films.
Male and female stereotypes, ubiquitous in romance movies (the guy is a moron, the girl is quirky), are dispensed with on “Miss Match.” Some women are jerks, some men are jerks. Some men are nice, some women are nice. Some women fear commitment, some men fear commitment.
As long as it’s on the air, I’ll be making a date with “Miss Match” every Friday. Now, if only I could get a date with Alicia Silverstone …
If you watch
Title: “Miss Match”
Air time: 8 p.m. Fridays on NBC
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Ryan O’Neal, David Conrad
Created by: Darren Star
Grade: A