james avery

Sherri, premiering tonight on Lifetime, is a very confusing show. It has flashes of genius, with several lines that made me laugh out loud ("Screw me once, shame on you. Screw a white woman -- we done"). At other times, however, it's bogged down with over-the-top dialogue and atrocious acting.

The premise behind Sherri is basically Sherri Shepherd's actual life. Both the real and fictional Sherri has held down jobs at a law office while working as a comedian and an actress, with bit parts on television shows. They both got married and had a son, only to find out that their husband was cheating on them.

Last week on The View, Sherri Shepherd showed off her new body, clad in a bathing suit, and now it seems there was more to her remake than just good health and looking better. Shepherd's Lifetime sitcom, Sherri, will premiere on October 5, and you just know it's her intention to score a big time success. Lifetime has had this in the works for months. This is the network's first fully-owned sitcom, so you gotta believe the net has a lot of faith in Sherri.

The show is based on Shepherd's stand-up, which is the same formula that worked for Roseanne, Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond), Tim Allen (Home Improvement) and a half-dozen other comics, and the exposure Sherri gets from The View won't hurt at all.

The same demographic that watches The View tunes in to Lifetime shows like Drop Dead Diva and Army Wives. Oh, and don't forget the Lifetime movies. Ladies love Lifetime.

(S01E04) Is James Avery always a lawyer these days? Every time I see him he's either a lawyer, or a judge, or someone involved in law enforcement. Gosh, even in The Closer he's a medical examiner. And in other things he's been a general and a Chancellor and other characters of power. Well, I guess if you are going to be stereotyped in Hollywood it's best to be stereotyped as a person of authority.

Anyway, Avery was a guest-star on this week's Eli Stone as, you guessed it, a lawyer. But, he wasn't a member of Eli's firm. He was actually requesting the services of Jordan Whethersby to represent him in a case of same-race discrimination. You read right -- this was Jordan's case, not Eli's. This makes it the first time in the show's short history that there was more than one case shown on an episode.