'Party Of Five' Spinoff Pilot In For Retooling

By Josef Adalian

NEW YORK (Variety) - Fox television's much-anticipated "Party of Five" spinoff, "Time of Your Life," is going in for repairs.

The network has ordered the pilot episode of the Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle reshot, in part because executives didn't feel the show, slated to premiere Mondays at 8 p.m., worked as a companion to "Ally McBeal."

The original pilot was also too quirky for some Fox executives, according to production insiders.

Fox had originally planned to pair "Time" with "Party," but instead wound up scheduling the spinoff Mondays. The network recently announced that the pilot will "undergo a change in tone so that it can stand on its own" as an "Ally" lead-in.

Co-executive producer Chris Keyser said the show will "still be a 'Party of Five' spinoff" and still center on Hewitt's "Party" character Sarah, who's heading to New York to find herself and her birth parents. Now, however, Keyser plans to "cram more storylines" into the pilot sooner.

The goal, he adds, is to "take the same story and speed it up a little bit."

As for Hewitt, he said, "There's lots of Love in the show."