Muddling Through

Connie Drego (Stephanie Hodge) returns to Drego's Oasis in rural Michigan, a road side stop and cabins, after more than two years in prison. She had accidentally shot her cheating husband Sonny in the butt. Her oldest daughter Madeline (Jennifer Aniston) has been running the business while she's away and got married to Duane Cooper who was the arresting police officer in her case. In the mean time, the younger daughter Kerri has become rebellious. She divorced Sonny but he's still living in one of the cabins.

This Aniston sitcom aired over the summer right before Friends. It's a functional network sitcom with no particularly outstanding aspect. It has a few laughs although the laugh track would say otherwise. Stephanie Hodge doesn't project the big personality that is needed to lead. She seems fine as a sitcom wife but this role needs to be bigger. Everything is fine but none of it is big enough. It's a by-the-book sitcom with not enough juice. It's just as well as both Aniston and Hodge would go on to do bigger things. The most notable thing for television history may be that Aniston was filming this at the same time as Friends. If this show had been picked up, she would had to leave Friends due to contractual obligations.