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Samantha Who? ABC - Mondays, 9:30pm How would you like to rewind your life, erase all the mistakes and cringe-worthy moments and start over with a clean slate? It's a common fantasy. But for Samantha Newly, the fantasy is far too real. After a hit-and-run car accident puts her into an eight-day coma, she wakes up with retrograde amnesia. She can function in the world, but she can't remember a single fact about her own life! As Samantha digs through clues like a detective to find out who she is (or was), she's hindered by unreliable narrators: her parents and friends all seem to have something to hide from her. Only Samantha's boyfriend -- a stranger, now -- is trustworthy. Quickly, though, Samantha learns what everyone else knows: she was a horrible person. Vain, selfish, lacking conscience or heart, she had far more enemies than friends. She even cheated on her boyfriend. So when Samantha learns that her "accident" was actually an attempted murder, she is, unfortunately, not surprised. If you could start over, would you do things differently? Could you do them differently? Can people change? Or are we just... who we are? These are the questions Samantha Who? asks, as our heroine begins the long, comic process of starting over from scratch -- fixing old mistakes, reconnecting with her not-so-loving family and rediscovering love. While friends yank her in different moral directions… afraid of the "old Sam" returning… afraid that her would-be killer will try again… Samantha tries to remake herself through good, positive choices -- even though the bad ones are so much easier (and way more fun). Samantha Who? stars Christina Applegate as Samantha Newly, with a supporting cast that includes Jean Smart, Barry Watson, Jennifer Esposito, Melissa McCarthy, Tim Russ, and Kevin Dunn. Jean plays Sam's mother, Regina Newly. "When I read the pilot, I thought it was so, so funny," Jean said. "Here's a woman who videotapes her daughter coming out of a coma so she can go on 'Extreme Makeover."' "She's been given this second chance with her daughter - any parent's dream," Jean said of Regina. "She's not handling it very well. She's a little clumsy when it comes to mothering. She thinks she's doing the right thing but often, she's not at all. She refuses to do any self-analysis. If anything's wrong, it's someone else's fault. It's funny to play someone who's not introspective when she's up against a daughter who is constantly picking apart every moment." Christina Applegate describes Jean as "one of the kindest, most amazing, loving women that I’ve known. Just watching her is, it’s a lesson. Every week is a lesson. You just go, 'Wow!' She is just really brilliant."
"She does a great drunk," Applegate adds. "She does an amazing drunk. I always thought that Catherine O’Hara did the best drunk in the world in Waiting for Guffman, but Jean might have knocked her out of the park."
Jean was honored with the 2008 Emmy Award for her performance on the series. Reviews: "Jean Smart, who moves from comedy to drama as stylishly as any actress on TV, excels again as Samantha's mother Regina." -- Tom Jicha, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
"Jean Smart is terrifically funny as Sam's self-centered mom. In a season short on tolerable comedies, this one deserves to last." -- Joanne Ostrow, Denver Post
"Jean Smart is terrific as Sam’s mother Regina, who has self-absorption down to an art." -- Toledo Blade
"By her bedside is her uncaring mother, played by the fantastic Jean Smart, who is trying to use her daughter’s condition to gain herself a place on reality TV. Taping her pitch, she speaks into a video camera in the hospital room and says: “Struck down by a hit-and-run driver. Hooked to machines like an eighth-grade science experiment. In a coma from which she may never recover. Where does a mother turn for comfort and answers at a time like this? To you, that’s where. The good people of ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.’” -- Gina Bellafante, New York Times
"Breakout star Jean Smart borrows her thoughtless self-absorption from Lucille on Arrested Development, and that's just fine. Worth a season pass? Yes. [Samantha Who?] is quick fun." -- Aileen Gallagher, New York Magazine
"Also spinning the past is Jean Smart -- another actress of greater gifts and depth than television always makes apparent -- as Samantha's mother, Regina. Though many of her lines turn on her self-involvement, Smart plays the whole person -- sad and hopeful, loving a daughter she doesn't like." -- Robert Lloyd, LA Times
"The only one giving Applegate a hand is the excellent Jean Smart, who plays her mother, Regina. Her deadpan restraint, tinged with vulnerability, cuts beyond the prevalent cliched characterizations and creates a sense of comedic intrigue." -- Tim Swift, Baltimore Sun
"Smart, who also excelled on 24, savors her role as an impossible, self-absorbed mother. She and Applegate form a fantastic team." -- Hal Boedeker, Orlando Sentinel
"Jean Smart is her usual incomparable self as Sam's blithely cruel mother." -- Karla Peterson, San Diego Union-Tribune
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