'Jane By Design': 5 things to know about ABC Family's adorable new show

'Jane By Design': 5 things to know about ABC Family's adorable new show

ABC Family continues its trend of adorable yet addictive family-friendly programming with "Jane By Design," which premieres Tuesday, Jan. 3 on the network. Erica Dasher stars as high-schooler Jane Quimby, who somehow manages to score a part-time gig as an assistant at a fashion design house when she applies for an internship.

Andie MacDowell plays the appropriately three-named designer boss, Gray Chandler Murray, and though she only appears via video chat in the first episode, her playful bitchiness shines through. For a lady who seems like such a down-to-earth person in real life, she sure plays a realistic witch.

Here are five more things you should know about the new series:

1. Yes, it will remind you of "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead." But is that such a bad thing? Sure, there's no Josh Charles, and Dasher's Jane is more of the adorable, awkward type (as opposed to Christina Applegate's popular, bitchy type). But it's got the same fish-out-of-water charm combined with the fantasy fashion world you only see on TV. We dig it.

2. There are cute boys. Duh. This is ABC Family, after all. But is it weird that we find Jane's former high school hot-shot older brother Ben (David Clayton Rogers), who is raising his kid sister after their dad died, way cuter than Jane's BFF Billy (Nicholas Roux)? Maybe it's because Billy's strange mullet-mohawk hybrid freaks us out. Does that mean we're getting older?

3. There are trying-on-clothes montages set to Pink songs. Also duh. This is an ABC Family show about fashion -- did you think we could escape without any?

4. Did we mention Dasher is ultra-charming? Because she is. Her take on wide-eyed teen is perfection, and although occasionally Jane seems more sophisticated than she should be, she pulls it off. The one thing we don't believe: That a girl as daring in the clothes department as Jane would lack enough self-esteem to talk to her crush. Come on, girlfriend talked her way into a grown-up job, she could at least hold her own in a conversation with a cute boy from school. Plus, Dasher is gorgeous -- there's no way boys wouldn't be lining up to talk to her.

5. There is an icky older-dude flirtation. "JBD" takes the now-common student-teacher relationship trope and twists it a little so that an older, senior fashion designer at Donovan Decker, where Jane lucks into her assistant job, flirts with the girl he does not realize is underage. And she flirts back.