If UPN's "Kevin Hill" looks a lot like a male version of the 1987 movie "Baby Boom," it's just a coincidence.
Like Diane Keaton before him, Taye Diggs plays a career-oriented person whose life suddenly changes when his cousin dies and leaves him custody of an infant. Like the character in the movie, the TV character thinks about giving the baby up for adoption before adopting a more parental attitude.
But creator/co-executive producer Jorge A. Reyes looked closer to home for inspiration.
"My younger cousin had a baby with a stripper that had a substance-abuse problem and she abandoned him with the baby," Reyes said. "And I saw the changes that his life went through.
"And what was kind of interesting to me is that if that happened to my brother, who's . . . let's just say he's kind of an enlightened caveman . . . the changes that he would have gone through."
That, combined with Reyes' experience working for a New York-based Latina magazine where he was "the only heterosexual male surrounded by all these beautiful, formidable, intelligent women . . . sort of fused into this one character."
And Kevin Hill is one of the more unexpectedly winning characters of the fall season.
When we meet him in the opening moments of Wednesday's premiere (8 p.m., Ch. 24), Kevin Hill has got it going on. He's young, hip, handsome and incredibly successful — both in his career as an entertainment lawyer and with the ladies. The last thing he expects is to have to make any sort of accommodations to his lifestyle that come when you become a father of an infant girl.
Which parallels what "Kevin Hill" meant to Diggs, a film actor (his credits include "How Stella Got Her Groove Back," "Go," "The Best Man," "Brown Sugar," "Chicago" and "Malibu's Most Wanted") who wasn't looking to do TV.
"My manager brought me the script, and he told me it was going to change my life. . . . Luckily, this came along. It just happened to be on TV, so I jumped at it," said Diggs, who was on People's list of the 50 Most Beautiful People in both 1999 and 2001. "I'm very much looking forward to developing this character throughout a long period of time as opposed to the two hours you have on film."
While the pilot episode plays almost like a short movie, there does appear to be plenty of room for development in coming episodes — there are a lot of characters surrounding Kevin.
There's his buddy, the fun-loving Dame Butler (Jon Seda of "Homicide"). There's the nanny he hires, George (Patrick Breen), who forces Kevin to confront his own Neolithic attitudes about gay people.
And, when he quits the high-pressured law firm where he's unable to balance work and fatherhood, Kevin lands at a small, "boutique" firm where he's the only man — forcing him to confront his Neolithic attitudes about women.
"Kevin Hill" is not just a parenting program but a legal drama. Working with Jessie (Michael Michelle of "ER"); the shy-but-brilliant Nicollette (Christina Hendricks); and the sharp-as-nails Veronica (Kate Leverling) (who had a one-night stand with Kevin) opens up stories addressing any number of issues. In the premiere, they represent a woman suing a star athlete who she claims sexually attacked her — and he's represented by Kevin's old firm.
"In this one series, I have more levels and more colors to play than I think I have had in any film that I've done," Diggs said. "So I'm just very excited."
Viewers should be, too.
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com