Tying up the loose ends of bygone school days

Hidden away in even the most meticulously led life lurks some bit of unfinished business left over from the high school or college years. A promising love match derailed by a twist of fate. A longtime friendship soured by misunderstanding. The feelings-stomping boor who needed to be told off.

For most people, the ensuing years have calloused over those emotions, leaving perhaps just the rare twinge of regret or curiosity about what might have been, but now a new series on Fox offers the chance to reopen those old wounds. “Classmates TV,” a syndicated show airing weekdays on Fox’s KTTV at 10 a.m., starting today, reunites pairs of brave souls who are not content to let sleeping dogs lie.

Each half-hour episode contains two segments, with the participants culled from the popular Classmates.com Web site, and judging from this week’s entries, the producers may be on to something. On Tuesday’s show, for example, two half-sisters who attended the same Orange County high school two decades ago without realizing they are related are brought together for a reunion on the deserted campus.

Marci Shuey and D’Arcy Paulus share a father whose brief relationship with a woman shortly after his marriage to Marcy’s mother fizzled resulted in the step-siblings. They weren’t told about each other until they were about 20, and a proposed meeting initiated by Marcy failed to materialize.

Viewers get a lot of back story leading to the big moment, and when the two women are finally face to face for a long-delayed heart to heart, they’re stunned to discover they had more in common than a father.

“I can’t believe people called her ‘Bongo Lips’ like I was called,” Marcy marvels.

Ah, those sweet high school memories....