I have my trusty bottle of Pimm’s, which I will either empty into my stomach to dull the pain of what I am about to see or use to smack myself over the head -- both should lead to another plane of existence where Jennifer Love Hewitt doesn’t smile, doesn’t cry, and, for God’s sake, doesn’t sing.

The opening scene is just too horrible to relive. Let’s just say Sarah on Fen-Phen, lost luggage, babbling unnecessarily to a complete stranger, proposition for sex by said stranger. I am going to ignore the fact that the writers made aforementioned sex-starved stranger foreign, except maybe to note that if he had understood English, he wouldn’t have had any desire to bring Sarah back to his apartment. Except maybe to smack her over the head with a cast-iron skillet.

Because of the seeming lack of hotel rooms in the biggest city in North America, Sarah has decided to chance it on the warm, welcoming and not to mention supremely safe streets of New York. But hey, she’s going to the apartment building where her mother lived twenty years ago, so I am sure everything will just be peachy-keen. Wearing the customary boob-enhancing top, our heroine knocks on the first apartment door she comes upon in the building where her mother lived twenty years ago. The door flies open and Sarah is confronted by loud, pulsating music and a tallish blonde whose hair appears to be done in elaborate, obviously time-consuming mini-pigtails. She looks like she could kick Sarah’s skinny little behind. My mood lifts as I think of this possible outcome, until Sarah goes and ruins it by opening her mouth and giving Pig Tails what she believes to be a winning smile. At the first sight of that sappy smile, my heart sinks and I reach for my fill-it-to-the-rim-with-Pimm’s glass.

"I’m sorry, I was looking for the building manager," Sarah burbles in that hopelessly charming but sick-making way we all love so much. Pig Tails gives her a quick once-over to figure out if she should use a right hook, or just blow on this giggly New York-Virgin to make her fall down, then says, "You want an apartment, leave your name, slip me a few hundred bucks and I’ll let you know when somebody dies." Now that’s the New York that will stomp on Love’s delicate soul. Preventing the door from being closed on her pretty widdle face, Sarah says, "I don’t want to rent. Now, I know this is gonna sound weird..." No weirder than a chick flying from San Fran to New York and telling anyone with ears that her mother lived there twenty years ago and she has now come to find her father. "...but my mom lived here twenty years ago in apartment 3E and she died and it would be really nice if just one time I could maybe see..." Pig Tails cuts her off, "Honey, this isn’t colonial Williamsburg. I don’t give tours." Sarah tells her that she will give her money if she can just see the apartment where her mother lived twenty years ago. Oh, for crying out loud. She can count, she can climb stairs, and about two minutes ago she proved she is fully capable of knocking on doors. Why does she need an escort? Oh, right, it’s the numbers and letters that are throwing her off. In all the tired looking-for-my-birth-mother/father/sister/brother/cat story lines I’ve seen on the Lifetime channel, if the person who now lives in the apartment/house/condo/mansion/box-on-the-street where your birth mother/father/sister/brother/cat used to live isn’t at home, you go back another day. Jeez, you’re in New York! Go to a show or something. Better yet, visit "The Modern" (tm Felicity). But not our Princess Sarah.