Television Reviews : ‘Just in Time’ Could Use a Good ‘Slap’ in the Script

“It makes you look like a jerk, Harry,” says one of the characters in the new ABC sitcom “Just in Time,” “but it’s funny.” If he was talking about the show itself, he’d be half right.

“Just in Time,” debuting tonight at 9:30 on ABC (and replacing the far superior “The ‘Slap’ Maxwell Story”) does make its central character, magazine editor Harry Stadlin (Tim Matheson), look like a jerk--on purpose. But it isn’t funny. Or worth watching for any other reason.

In terms of situation, “Just in Time” does have something in common with “ ‘Slap’ Maxwell.” The main character is supposed to be lovably obnoxious and the plot revolves around a publication (a Los Angeles-based magazine called West Coast). Trouble is, Stadlin is simply obnoxious, period.

The show also may remind viewers of “Lou Grant” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” certainly not in terms of quality, but for by-now stock roles like the ambitious-yet-moral star columnist, the noble assistant editor and the Ted Baxter-type pincushion who’s kept on for no apparent reason but cheap shots.

The premiere is all premise, no laughs, as it vainly tries to convince us that Stadlin is so mesmeric for his go-getter energy that we can overlook his otherwise tasteless, scruples-less personality.

As if “Just in Time” weren’t bad enough already, it comes up immediately with a thoroughly unbelievable situation: Writer Joanna Farrell (Patricia Kalember, from “Kay O’Brien: Surgeon”) turns in, as her first story for new editor Stadlin, an article about him --one that reveals that he cheated on his ex-wife. And just when you’re trying to swallow that one, Stadlin reads over the story and says, “Run it.”

Yeah, right. Gritty realism time, folks. An editor OKs an embarrassing (and unassigned) article about himself in the first issue he supervises. This nonsense wouldn’t be so bad if it were funny nonsense--or even if there were one honest laugh in 30 minutes.

Unless it improves vastly, “Just in Time” may simply wind up as the answer to the TV trivia question “What terrible, short-lived series, which oddly replaced a very good one, most thoroughly failed to live up to its own name?”