Three Moons Over Milford (2006)

Please do me a favor: Watch the premiere episode of Three Moons Over Milford on Aug. 6, and see how long it takes you to figure out what the heck is going on in this small East Coast village. Seriously — if I didn't have a press release explaining the premise, it would have taken me most of the first hour to realize that (and I'm just guessing here, because I've watched two episodes now and I'm still not entirely sure) the moon has broken into three pieces. Because of this, people think a stray chunk could strike Earth and therefore doom may be imminent; as a result, residents of Milford react in very different ways.

The star of the show, Elizabeth McGovern, portrays Laura, wife and mother of two. Thanks to the moons, her husband has up and left to pursue a spiritual quest. In the meantime, Laura's daughter, Lydia (Teresa Celentano), joins a Wiccan group, and an adult woman kisses Laura's teenage son, Alex (Sam Murphy), because ''the moons tell me to...'' Many other colorful oddballs do silly, cutesy things.

Here's my theory: ABC Family gets good ratings with Gilmore Girlsreruns, so it decided to program a series about small-town eccentrics. But the result is so aimless and schmaltzy, it's incoherent. To the staff writing Gilmore now that Amy Sherman-Palladino is gone, one request: Please don't get all Moon-y on us.

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