Hewitt series light, pleasant> ‘Time of Your Life’ debuts tonight on Fox

The last of the fall’s new shows debuts tonight, coming after the first of the cancellations have already occurred.

The revamped “Time of Your Life,” which premieres at 8 p.m. on Fox, is an insubstantial but harmless star vehicle for the ubiquitous Jennifer Love Hewitt. The drama is a spinoff from the waning “Party of Five,” where Hewitt’s character, Sarah Merrin, was the least whiny member of that cast.

The new series, also by “PO5” creators Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman, is the latest riff on the “little girl in the big city” theme. Adopted Sarah, equipped only with her birth mother’s name, leaves her San Francisco home and on-and-off boyfriend Bailey Salinger for Manhattan, to seek out her real father.

Over the next hour, spunky Sarah explores a series of false leads and undergoes a number of misadventures while settling into her new life. Along the way, she easily makes a handful of new friends. Think of it as “A Midsummer’s Night Dream” set in a bad Manhattan neighborhood.

Like its stars, “Time of Your Life” is lightweight but pleasant, and doesn’t terribly challenge the viewer. Its young cast, led by Jennifer Garner (“Felicity”) as her roommate and Diego Serrano as her potential love interest, is interesting, in a mumbling, breathless kind of way. “Time of Your Life,” umm, you know, kinda reaches out for young viewers in its time slot, and will probably connect.