Pity the poor high school guidance counselor. Long the victim of a murky power base -- not a teacher, nor an administrator -- guidance counselors too often must fight daily battles for respect. And now they have to cope with "Miss Guided," ABC's new comedy that debuts tonight before moving to its regularly scheduled time slot on Thursdays.
Created by Caroline Williams and, more important, executive-produced by Ashton Kutcher, "Miss Guided," though sweet and occasionally effervescent, chooses the road most traveled -- the tyranny of high school. This time chronicled by one Becky Freeley (Judy Greer), former Glen Ellen High School loser (she had braces! a bad haircut!) recently returned as guidance counselor. "She was much more attractive than I remembered," explains Principal Huffy (Earl Billings), setting the tone for things to come.
Now I don't want to draw any unkind conclusions about writers, since I is one, but it must be noted that the triumph of the high school misfit is a very popular leitmotif -- in a pre-strike episode of "Grey's Anatomy," even McDreamy copped to former geekhood. Indeed, high school, with all its cliques, heartaches, social bumblings and occasional epiphanies, is pretty much the Rosetta Stone of television comedy.
So, not surprisingly, "Miss Guided" is less about the life of a guidance counselor and more about a perky, charmingly eccentric woman allowed to relive her school days, with, one hopes, more successful results. And look, here's the former homecoming queen, Lisa Germain (Brooke Burns), who recently joined the staff purportedly as an English teacher, but really to make Becky's life, once again, a living heck. Of course, Lisa instantly has eyes for the hunky auto-shop-turned-Spanish teacher, Tim (Kristoffer Polaha), whom Becky has been stalking with enchiladas and a dogged persistence one would hope she might bring to her job, but no.
The students in "Miss Guided" are merely expositional devices, allowing Becky to deliver weirdly wise little lectures or, more often, serving as props -- in the second episode, Jamie Lynn Spears shows up as a young woman Becky has persuaded to attend college. The girl is on screen less than two minutes, to deliver that very message. Twice. In case any parents in the audience were thinking, "You know, this Becky chick is probably the worst guidance counselor I have ever seen."
