Maya Gallo (Laura San Giacomo): As the series begins, Maya is fired from her job as a TV news writer for sabotaging a whiny anchorwoman on the air, despite the fact that the woman had it coming. News of this incident spreads, and Maya finds herself still jobless three months later. As a last resort, she is forced to ask for a job at her father Jack's magazine Blush, a glossy Cosmo-like publication with even less redeeming moral and social value.

In the first season, the show revolved around her. Each episode had at least one scene set in her apartment, where we would usually hear her talk about what happened at the office, and what she was feeling at the moment. This changed in the second season, when the focus was shifted to the entire office. Maya remained the central character, but the show was no longer specifically about her.

Maya is a devoted, serious-minded person, but has a strong sentimental side. She is strong in her beliefs, and fights for what's important to her, but she remains an essentially warm-hearted person. Her personality finds her frequently at odds with her father, and usually it is she who is right.

In the first season, Maya was seen as the enemy by most of the office, and her scenes typically found one of the other characters putting her down, only to be hit with a sharp comeback by the feisty Maya. In the second season, things loosened up quite a bit and she quickly fit in. Also during this season, there was an attempt to introduce more comedy into the character. Formerly the center of reality, Maya in several episodes began acting as crazy as the rest of them. Stories of hers included standing in a sewer getting drenched by radioactive waste, mistaking a nicotine patch for a bandage and acting hyper the rest of the day, and trapping a United States Congressman in her foldout couch when she discovers he is married and everyone is looking for him. In the third season, she calmed back down and eased into her more comfortable position as straight man for the wacky antics of the others.

Jack Gallo (George Segal): As Maya describes him, Jack is exactly like his magazine: slick and glossy, but with nothing inside. (Plus, he gets fatter in December!) Jack has been married four times, and never to the same woman for very long. As the series begins, he has pulled one of his worst philandering stunts ever- marrying one of Maya's classmates, though he asserts that they are truly in love this time. In the first episode, she gives birth to their first child together. Maya is very resentful toward Jack, partly because of what he represents, but mostly because he never gave her the love and attention she needed growing up. He wants to correct that mistake now that Maya is back in his life again, as well as prove to her that he has changed as a person.

Jack is probably the character who has suffered from the most inconsistent characterization. In some episodes, he's a sly, manipulative fox, two steps ahead of everybody. In others, he's portrayed as amazingly daft, and almost senile. Jack is a generally respected leader, who is very close to his most important employees (namely, the other characters in the show), although he barely seems to have the time of day for anyone else in the company. He acts much like a politician in that he is very image-conscious and concerned with putting up a good front, and with what other people think of him. This is in sharp contrast with his daughter Maya, who tends to wear her heart on her sleeve. Although Jack is usually presented as incredibly shallow, we are occasionally allowed to see that he genuinely cares for his family and his closest employees.

Dennis Finch (David Spade): Jack's right hand man. He is pretentious, power hungry, obnoxious, sarcastic, and a very blatant brown-noser. He also likes to pathetically chase after all the models that come to Blush. He's not gay, but sometimes people think he is. (And his own behavior doesn't really help him any in that regard.)

Early on, Finch's role in the show was simple: make people laugh and rankle the other characters by continuously hitting them with sharp putdowns and clever wisecracks. Although a few second season episodes showed him taking on a more central role (most prominently, the episode in which his dad believes he is gay), he mainly stuck to this persona throughout the first two seasons. In the third season, however, there was a definite attempt to flesh out and "humanize" his character a lot more. Many fans feared this process would eventually turn Finch into a pathetic shadow of his former self; however, the third season finale (in which Finch manipulates a vulnerable Rebecca Romijn to the altar) went a long way toward showing people that Finch was still the same delightful sleazeball he had always been.

Nina Van Horn (Wendie Malick): Blush's fashion editor. Once upon a time, Nina was one of the most glamorous models in the business. Now she's caught between trying to hang on to the glories of her past and maturing to face the future.

Nina is the character who has changed the most since the beginning. Although her insecurities and neurotic tendencies were there from the get-go, they were not the focus of her character in the first season. In the first season, Nina was presented as bitter and antagonistic, and usually very rude to the other characters, especially Maya. Levitan and Co. must have sensed this character wouldn't serve them well for an extended period of time, because in the first few shows of the second season, there is a clear attempt to take Nina in a new direction. The bitchy aspects of her character were dropped in favor of a more dinghy, neurotic persona. The move worked brilliantly. Nina's insecurities were now allowed to come out in full force, and provided a gold mine of comedic possibility. Wendie Malick played the new character to perfection, and before too much longer, Nina would be strongly challenging Finch as the show's most popular character.

Elliott DiMauro (Enrico Colantoni): Blush's chief photographer. He is egotistic, self-absorbed, and despite being physically unattractive, very successful with women. This is largely due to two things: 1. his job. 2. his amazing (though incredibly slimy) powers of seduction. He sleeps with nearly every model he shoots.

Elliott has also undergone some changes since the first season, although not nearly as drastically as Nina. The sleazy aspects of his character were gradually toned down, as Elliott became more respectable and sympathetic. His attitude toward women was shown to become more respectful in general, but the main change was in his relationship with Maya. Although "In Your Dreams" from the first season hinted at the pair's possible sexual feelings for each other, their relationship has been developed along purer and more honest lines. Their platonic friendship has been developed steadily and constantly since the second season. Their relationship is best summarized by episodes like "Toy Story" and "Maya's Nude Photos", in which the two are shown to value their friendship and mutual respect for each other above any cheap feelings of lust. However, don't count romance out yet; "The Kiss" and "Toy Story" indicate love may still be in the air for these two, and his behavior toward Maya's boyfriend Kenny in "A Spy in the House of Me" speaks volumes. And that's not even mentioning the fix they find themselves in at the end of "The Odd Couple".

Wally (Chris Hogan): [Season 1 only] Maya's roommate during the first season. Somewhat nerdy. Wally usually appeared only once per episode, and never outside the apartment.

Wally's only real purpose on the show was to provide someone for Maya to talk to about what went on at work. Naturally, when the focus shifted to the office in the second season, there was no more need for his character, and he was quickly dropped. His leaving was never actually mentioned on the show, leading fans to propose all sorts of amusing theories on what happened to him. (One involves Maya wiping him out as part of a gang hit, and with Finch's help, dumping him in a sewer.)

Recurring characters

Persky (Tom Kenny): another Blush employee- it isn't made clear what he does. Persky generally just shows up when they need another character for a joke or plot.

Adrienne Barker (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos): an insecure, neurotic supermodel whom Finch amazingly convinces to marry him. Although there are signs of some genuine romantic feelings between them, their relationship to this point is more a result of Finch's dastardly scheming than of any natural spark the two have. Two things have dominated the humor of their relationship so far: Finch's incredible difficulty in convincing people that a woman like Adrienne could fall for someone like him, and his constant conniving in an effort to hang on to her.