''Temporarily Yours'' is an American

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

that aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

for six episodes in 1997.

Plot

Deb DeAngelo (

Debi Mazar Deborah Anne Mazar Corcos (; born August 13, 1964) is an American actress and television personality, known for playing sharp-tongued women. She began her career with supporting roles in ''Goodfellas'' (1990), '' Little Man Tate'' (1991) and ''S ...

), a young woman is desperate for a luxurious, cheaply priced

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

apartment. She lies to the landlady about having a job with a

temp agency Temporary work or temporary employment (also called gigs) refers to an employment situation where the working arrangement is limited to a certain period of time based on the needs of the employing organization. Temporary employees are sometimes ...

and then hurries to the agency to beg for work before the landlady calls and discovers the lie. The agency is run by Joan (

Joanna Gleason Joanna Gleason (née Hall; born June 2, 1950) is a Canadian actress and singer. She is a Tony Award–winning musical theatre actress and has also had a number of notable film and TV roles. She's known for originating the role of the Baker's Wife ...

), an uptight businesswoman. Joan reluctantly takes on Deb as an employee but sends her out on strange assignments. In the pilot episode, she is sent to work as a makeup artist at a

mortuary A morgue or mortuary (in a hospital or elsewhere) is a place used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification (ID), removal for autopsy, respectful burial, cremation or other methods of disposal. In modern times, corpses have cu ...

. The following episodes generally revolved around Deb's various temporary assignments and how they affected her personal life.

Cast

as Deb DeAngelo *

as Joan Silver * Seth Green as David Silver * Saverio Guerra as Caesar Santos * Nancy Cassaro as Anne Marie

Reception

The series was heavily derided by critics and had low viewership and was canceled after six episodes. In ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

'', Bruce Fretts wrote:

The cast renders this limp material watchable. Mazar’s outer-borough chumminess contrasts well with Gleason’s WASPy chilliness. While it’s no gem, the show fits better with ''
The Nanny ''The Nanny'' is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS from November 3, 1993, to June 23, 1999, starring Fran Drescher as Fran Fine, a Jewish fashionista from Flushing, Queens, New York, who becomes the nanny of three ch ...
'' than did
Rhea Perlman Rhea Jo Perlman (born March 31, 1948) is an American actress. She played head-waitress Carla Tortelli in the sitcom '' Cheers'' (1982–1993). Over the course of 11 seasons, Perlman was nominated for ten Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting ...
’s tarnished ''
Pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...
''. But if Mazar wants more than a temporary presence on CBS, she might want to call in a few temps herself — to replace the show’s writers.

Episodes

References

External links

* 1990s American sitcoms 1997 American television series debuts 1997 American television series endings CBS original programming Television shows set in New York City Television series created by Michael Patrick King Television series by 20th Century Fox Television {{US-comedy-tv-prog-stub