"Rebecca Romjin (however you spell her name)"
Remember the rule: "i" before "j" except after "k"...
Pepper Dennis got cancelled because the ratings it got weren't good enough.
I do think the show relied too heavily on Rebecca Romijn's looks. Her acting was a major weakness.
The show had an identity crisis. Letting people believe it was a comedy-drama was a marketing mistake considering how little drama there actually was.
Other problems included being on the WB (which had an identity crisis of its own), being a late season replacement right before the WB's merger with UPN, a merger which means that WB prime time programming is being cut almost in half.
It was clear even before the premier of Pepper Dennis that it was going to need a miracle if it wanted to get picked up.
PD didn't get a miracle.
OK, so Rebecca Romijn is not a great actress. Granted.
But how much great acting is on TV, actually? Seventh Heaven has been on for a long but I wouldn't credit that to great acting or great writing. Tear-jerker story lines and a good-looking cast probably have more to do with the show's success. Some successful shows star actresses that can barely act their way out of a paper bag (and some of them aren't half as attravtive as Rebecca Romijn).
Pepper Dennis had the good-looking cast covered. The writing was somewhat inconsistent but, in general, adequate.
The acting was adequate.
Brooke Burns was great as Kathy and, at times, stole the show. Josh Hopkins was mostly adequate as Babcock. He looked the part and the character worked even if the acting wasn't spectacular. Lyndsay Price was good as Kimmy and Rider Strong was great as Chick. Other characters that worked were Alexandra Barreto as Blanca and A.J. Trauth as Mitch.
Brett Cullen was fantastic as Jack Bell in the early episodes. He made the show believable. His replacement, Frederich Kohler as Les Gaye, to be brutally honest, stunk. It was all downhill for the Les Gaye character from the moment he was introducing himself and Pepper asked, "so you're Less Gay?" Les was uninteresting, unconvincing, non-fucntioning and unfunny - quite a letdown after Jack Bell.
All in all, I liked Pepper Dennis a whole lot - a lot more than I would ever had thought. At times it was hilarious although some of the humor took some getting used to. I liked the show better with every episode and I found most episodes funnier the second time I watched them than the first time.
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