Samantha Who? (New Series) Reviewed

Christina Applegate does her darnedest to make Jennifer Aniston proud: She manages to channel all of Rachel Green's goodly amount of tics and exasperated expressions into ABC's Samantha Who? (Mondays, 9:30 p.m.) without becoming obnoxiously derivative. Applegate takes all this and a little extra gusto to create Samantha Newly, an ex-harpy who receives a second chance to make good after a car accident leaves her with amnesia.

Every moment is laced with self-discovery: She quickly learns of her money-hemorrhaging shoe addiction, her cheating on perfectly decent boyfriend Todd (Barry Watson), and her icy ex-personality that pushed her parents (including the great Jean Smart as her caustic mother) away for two years. Its a good laugh with great actors, but its never quite enough: Watching Sam discover another obvious facet of herself is already becoming tiring, and we're only four episodes in. Samantha Who? deserves its recent season pick-up, but it won't be able to coast on this starting anew thing forever. Grade: B

Photo | ABC