Blossom

Gee, here’s something television hasn’t had enough of — a single dad coping with a clutch of smart, sassy children. Blossom‘s banal premise features Ted Wass (Soap) as a divorced father overseeing the upbringing of his newly teenage daughter, Blossom (Beaches‘ Mayim Bialik), as well as two sons played by Michael Stoyanov (Gross Anatomy) and Joey Lawrence (Gimme a Break).

Bialik is sort of the Debbie Gibson of sitcoms; she’s not conventionally pretty, she’s got a lot of talent and personality and a maturity beyond her years that’s never obnoxious. The same cannot be said of her TV brothers; Lawrence is your standard-issue teen hunk, while Stoyanov’s character is nothing less than appalling. Described in an NBC press release as ”a recovering substance abuser,” he has lines like ”Believe me, Dad, I know everything there is about drugs — buying…selling…kicking.” Stoyanov’s Anthony makes drug addiction seem like a stage we all go through, a teenage lark.

It would be easier to ignore this if the scripts for Blossom were funnier. An early episode involved Blossom’s first period (lots of tampon jokes); another concerned Blossom’s crush on an older boy. In short, there’s nothing here that showcases Bialik’s charm; Blossom wilts quickly. C-