Riley ( Katherine Towne) was a sarcastic, worldly teenager, raised in a foster home in Ohio, who made her way to Gossett, California, 20 miles south of the Oregon boarder, in search of her long lost birth parents. Enrolling in Gossett High, she immediately dumped herself on the doorstep of assistant principal Opal( Lauren Graham), whom she announced was her aunt.. Opal, a lonely arrogant woman, didn't believe her at first, but it appeared to be true. There were some laughs and a lot of heartfelt emotion as persistent Riley moved in with the reluctant Opal and got her to help, while using her street smarts to track down clues. Was her mother, Opal's sister, a psycho who got pregnant in High School and then moved to Finland? Maybe, maybe not. Clever Riley also helped Opal break out of her shell, getting her promoted to principal, and helping her open up. Mitch ( Paul Fitzgerald) was the hunky assistant principal and object of Opal's unrequited affection; Lisa ( Amanda Detmer), a sexy teacher who was dating Mitch, and A.J.( Colin Mortenson), the dumb office assistant.
The title , by the way, stood for " mind your own business."
A Review from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
New 'M.Y.O.B.' series D.O.A. for NBC
Sunday, June 04, 2000
By Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV Editor+
NBC's "M.Y.O.B." debuts this week D.O.A.
How come?
A summer premiere is telling, but not definitive. Remember, "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire" was a summer series tryout last August.
Here's the sure sign "M.Y.O.B." won't last: One of the show's stars, Lauren Graham, has been announced as the lead actress in The WB fall series "Gilmore Girls."
It's sort of too bad. "M.Y.O.B." is too abrasive to last, but it's easily more interesting television than, say, "Daddio."
If you've seen the 1998 film "The Opposite of Sex," you're well prepared for "M.Y.O.B." Both were created and written by Don Roos, both focus on cold-hearted, acerbic teen-age girls and both feature their lead characters talking directly to the audience in voice-over narration.
Christina Ricci starred as a trampy teen in "Opposite of Sex" and newcomer Katharine Towne plays a similar part in this series. Towne is Riley Veatch, a manipulative, self-centered 16-year-old who claims to have seen-it-all, done-it-all.
"Don't worry, this isn't a TV movie where I end up murdered and my mom has to pose as a hooker to track down my killer," Riley narrates as viewers see her prepare to get in a car with a stranger. "First of all, I don't die, and second of all, from what they tell me about my mom, she wouldn't have to pose."
In Tuesday's premiere, Riley travels to a small California town searching for her biological mother. Instead she finds Opal Brown (Graham), who may or may not be Riley's aunt. Opal works as a high school administrator. She's an uptight, self-righteous prude; Riley's polar opposite.
Riley schemes to win Opal the job of school principal, then ends up living with friendless Opal until a foster family can be found. In the meantime - the short duration of this series - the pair form an uneasy, odd couple-like bond.
"M.Y.O.B." - short for "Mind Your Own Business" - exists in a self-conscious world where Riley comments on her own TV show, blaming network time restrictions for her inability to continue on a tangent she's begun.
"We don't have time to get into all that, not with all the ads for 'Just Shoot Me' they want to squeeze in here, which is why I would have preferred cable, but, whatever," Riley says.
Creator/writer Roos comes up with clever dialogue, even if it's sometimes a little too precious, like the constant references to NBC's "Law & Order." At least the show sounds like no other.
Shot on location with a single camera, "M.Y.O.B." has the look and feel of a mini-movie. But by the second episode, the show already seems stuck in a plot rut: Opal has a problem, Riley connives a way to solve it as she finds clever ways to slam everyone she encounters.
Nasty as Riley is, I get a perverse thrill out of watching her assaults. But I think I'll tire of her quickly. Her attitude is refreshingly snarky at first, but grows tiresome.
Surely the girl must care about something or someone other than her own self-interest? Evidently not, judging by the first two episodes and Riley's declaration, "There's only one thing better than getting what you want: Getting what you want and pissing someone off at the same time."
She's really not a nice girl.
Both lead actresses seem well cast. Towne, especially, brings a naturally jaded ennui to her part. You get the sense she didn't have to stretch much to play Riley.
Like Tony Soprano, Riley is an anti-hero, but it's unlikely the audience will warm to her the way they took to Tony. He's a softy at heart, she's a rhymes-with-witch.
Occasionally Riley shows glimpses of kindness towards Opal, but for the most part she remains heartless. And that's probably why NBC has so little faith in this intriguing, but frigid and cheerless comedy.
A Review from The New York Times
TELEVISION REVIEW; Mom Died in a Shootout, but This Kid's O.K.
By RON WERTHEIMER
Published: June 6, 2000
''M.Y.O.B.,'' which begins tonight on NBC, is electroplated with attitude. That coating scratches easily, though, revealing the sentimentality underneath.
The sitcom, from a concept by Don Roos, writer and director of the film ''The Opposite of Sex,'' strikes a subversive pose, as if it were the opposite of network television. Much of its humor is directed at the medium's dumb conventions. But the darts it throws have rubber tips; they hit the target without inflicting damage.
From the first lines of narration from a 16-year-old girl named Riley (Katherine Towne), you can hear the show straining to be cool. When first encountered, Riley, a tough-talking little blonde in tight clothes, has just flown into San Francisco. She accepts a cab ride from a giggling ninny with a lecherous look.
''Don't worry,'' Riley tells you. ''Nothing bad happens to me. This isn't a TV movie where I like end up murdered and my mom has to pose as a hooker to help track down the murderer.'' True to her word, Riley outfoxes the guy after she gets a free meal in his hotel room, meanwhile sprinkling her narration with wry remarks about television in general and other NBC series in particular.
But speaking of her mom: that's who she's looking for. See, Riley was adopted as a baby, but when she was 4 her adoptive mother died in a post office shootout. (''She was the idiot with the gun.'') How she got from then to now isn't specified.
Riley has a copy of what might be her birth certificate, hacked from a government computer, which leads her to a woman she thinks is her birth mother's sister Opal (Lauren Graham), an earnest assistant principal in a Northern California high school. Opal's sister, Pearl (yes, some of this is funny), who moved to Finland with her guru 14 years ago, says by e-mail that she never had a baby. But even Opal allows that crazy Pearl might not remember.
In short order the love-starved Opal must cope with the arrival of someone claiming to be her kin, the sudden death of the school's principal and his quick replacement by Opal's crumb of an ex-boyfriend, Mitch (Paul Fitzgerald), whom Opal still loves even though he dumped her long ago and has now stolen the job she deserved. Whew!
Anyway, Opal takes Riley home. They start bonding. Riley tells her, ''Maybe you're worth more than you think.'' Then Riley blackmails the school superintendent (the creep who picked her up at the airport) into making Opal principal after all.
Next week Riley plays little miss fix-it again when Opal has a falling-out with her best friend.
So which is it? Subversive anti-sitcom or warm and fuzzy? ''M.Y.O.B.'' -- that stands of course for ''mind your own business,'' which Riley cannot do -- tries to split the difference. And despite its ironic veneer, the show just doesn't have enough difference to split.
At the end of tonight's episode, which Mr. Roos wrote, Riley throws down a challenge: ''So you don't wanna watch? Hey, that's O.K. 'Law and Order' is bound to be on somewhere.'' Great. Where?
M.Y.O.B.
NBC, tonight at 9:30
(Channel 4 in New York)
Don Roos and Ann Donahue, executive producers; David Codron, consulting producer; Mimi Friedman and Jeanette Collins, co-executive producers; Amy Engelberg, Wendy Engelberg, Jack Clements, Jimmy Aleck and Jim Kelly, producers; directed by Bryan Gordon. An NBC Studios Production.
WITH: Katharine Towne (Riley Veatch), Lauren Graham (Opal), Paul Fitzgerald (Mitch Levitt), Colin Mortensen (A.J.) and Amanda Detmer (Lisa Overbeck).
A Review from The LA Times
Television Review
June 06, 2000|HOWARD ROSENBERG | TIMES TELEVISION CRITIC
Getting a trial on NBC starting tonight is an uneven but somewhat promisingcomedy that creates an odd coupling of a snide, emotionally needy 16-year-old toughie and the neurotic high school official she believes to be her aunt.
"M.Y.O.B." (Mind Your Own Business) has going for it especially the edgy work of Katharine Towne, who strikes a perfect balance between vulnerability and Lolita-esque bawdiness and sinew as caustic, cynical, sexual Riley Veatch, whose mother abandoned her when she was an infant.
She shows up at Gossett High School tonight, latching on to an assistant principal named Opal (played by Lauren Graham), believing she's her mother's older sibling.
Not that it will matter one way or another, as Riley moves in with the reluctant Opal, starting a tenuous coexistence that in the premiere and a second episode has the teenager becoming wiser and more stable than the adult while using her wits and shrewdness to extricate the older woman from trouble.
"So we're stuck together till that very special episode when I find my birth mother," says Riley in a tongue-in-cheek voice-over that becomes a sendup of formulaic TV.
NBC's entertainment president, Garth Ancier, predicts "M.Y.O.B." will appeal to "teens and adults alike." In that regard, it opens with some gratuitous references to oral sex. Welcome to prime time in 2000.
Some of the dialogue is urbanely clever, and Riley is bright and funny in deploying her eyes and ears like sensors on behalf of fishing Opal from the soup. Her manipulative schemes reach fruition, though, only because these are scripts of convenience, with Riley just happening to be in the right place at the right time. And Opal's reluctance to take command is barely tolerable in that coming episode that finds her best friend, a teacher, having a fling with a student.
Again, prime time in 2000.
*
* "M.Y.O.B." can be seen tonight at 9:30 on NBC. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).
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