NBC (Sat., Sept. 10, 9:30 p.m. ET)
A-
Baby Boom the movie has found its proper genre as a sitcom. In fact, all shows about ambitious, greedy, self-centered yuppies should be sitcoms. Imagine thirtysomething with a laugh track. I do. In this TV version of Boom, wonderful Kate Jackson takes over the role created onscreen by the aggressively irritating Diane Keaton. She's an executive whose future's so bright she's gotta wear shades. But, suddenly, she inherits a dead distant relative's baby. There's no line on Kate's spreadsheet of life for diapers and humanity. Still, she's a superyup. She can raise a kid and profits. She can do anything. Boom is just a series of cute vignettes about Kate's life at work and at home. The show sets big business to music—worse yet, big brassy music (when Tennessee Ernie Ford's Sixteen Tons would be more appropriate). And that worried me. I was afraid that Boom would glorify corporate avarice the way cartoons glorify violence. But no. Boom ridicules yups, gently but effectively. When you see the sweet baby girl sitting with her play phone, imitating Mommy—"Let's have lunch!"—you see just how silly big biz iz. When you see Kate and a fellow woman exec trying to schedule lunch by playing dueling Filofaxes, you see grown-ups acting even sillier. Mostly, Boom is a nice excuse for lots of irresistibly darling, sweetly funny scenes—Mom on her Exercycle with the kid sitting in back, both singing Sesame Street; Mom trying to buy a potty seat with directions. That is reason enough to adore Baby Boom. But there's more. This is also a show with a small, quiet message: Boom says that there's more to life than meetings.
Your Reaction
