'Younger' Delivers High Laughs and High Fashion
By Nora Dominick ’17/ Emertainment Monthly Assistant Stage Editor
Younger follows Liza (Sutton Foster), a 40-year-old, recently divorced mother who is looking to get a job. After taking a sabbatical for fifteen years to raise her daughter, Caitlin (Tessa Albertson), she is now looking to get back into the field of publishing, a feat she is finding very difficult for a woman of her age. When Liza and her friend Maggie (Debi Mazar) go to a bar in Brooklyn, Liza is soon complimented and asked out by a much younger (very attractive) man, Josh (Nico Tortorella). This leads to Maggie giving her a makeover in order to look younger. Ultimately, she lands a job as an assistant to Diana (Miriam Shor), a hot-tempered boss at a publishing firm. With Liza navigating a new world of being in her twenties she finds a friend in her co-worker Kelsey (Hilary Duff). What ensues is a hilarious comedy about navigating the working world in a new, digital age.
Another element of Younger that calls back to Star’s work on Sex and the City is the fashion. Costume consultant Patricia Field worked with Star on Sex and the City and brings her talent and eye for fashion to this new show. Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) was the cardinal fashionista on Sex and the City and helped create some of the biggest fashion trends of the early 2000s. Now it looks like Liza could follow in her footsteps. Foster and Duff’s costumes in just this pilot episode are simply stunning. They call upon old fashion trends while staying hip and fresh. Like the setting, fashion almost seems like another character.
Of course, the ensemble of Younger also does a remarkable job. Hilary Duff makes her triumphant return to television as Liza’s best friend, a role that seems to be made for her. Duff is most notable from her work as a young actor on the Disney Channel hit series Lizzie McGuire, a television show that helped Duff show off her already-budding talent and hone her comedic skills. Although she has been seen in various smaller roles on television shows like Gossip Girl and Two and a Half Men, this is her first series-regular job since Lizzie McGuire. Duff does a good job and her character is sure to grow in upcoming episodes. Another actress highlighted in the pilot episode is Debi Mazar. Mazar is no stranger to television and film. Her work in Entourage and Goodfellas is stunning and she brings the same charisma to the role of Maggie. Her form of blunt, sarcastic humor perfectly compliments Foster’s physical comedy.
TV Land has ordered 12 episodes for this inaugural season, but based on this pilot episode, Younger could replace Hot in Cleveland, which ends its sixth season run later this year, as TV Lands next great comedy. Younger is a fresh take on a continuing trend of women trying to make it in New York City. The fashion and pure comic attitude of the show is beautifully blended together in the modern landscape.
Younger airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on TV Land
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SucwNpgCD4M