TV Review: 2 Broke Girls and The Playboy Club

Well, Monday was a pretty pitiful day for new programming, I can tell you that much. Returning shows Castle and to a much lesser extent How I Met Your Mother were the highlights of the evening. Yes, even HIMYM showed some signs of life, although it's on probation. I'm going to take Annie's lead and give it a chance so long as they don't have two bad episodes back-to-back. Even at it's best these days, it's really more "pleasant" than anything else, but for a 20 minute distraction, that's really all I need. That said, I was no fan of Victoria the first time around. Ugh.

Anyway, on to the drivel! I, uh, mean new shows!

2 BROKE GIRLS

Oh my holy god this was painful. I had heard from several critics that it was supposed to be really good, but as it turns out, the critics were smoking massive amounts of crack at the time of viewing... Holy hell this was bad. In all honesty, I only made it 7 minutes in before I simply couldn't take it anymore (a record heretofore held by the pilot for Outsourced), so who knows? Maybe it rallied in it's last 20 minutes or something... I doubt it. Kat Dennings is charmless and has no discernible comedic chops. I only saw about a minute of her costar, so I can't really judge conclusively, but I think it's safe to say she wasn't any better. Aside from the unfunny leads, the show was also awash in tacky ethnic stereotypes that have never been funny. The show basically has Long Duk Dong in the role of horrifying Asian stereotype, Uncle Remus rounding out the offensive African American angle, and I hardly know what to say about the lascivious Russian. It was all in poor taste and was completely off-putting. I'm no politically correct prude, but if you're going to push boundaries or take stabs at people, they have to work. These did not. Such characterizations weren't funny 40 years ago, let alone now. In a modern context, it felt idiosyncratic and lame. It would be like a current comedy revolving around Three Stooges style slap stick. Ugh. Anyway, the jokes were painfully forced, the odd couple concept has been way over played (speaking of old motifs), and the cast was terrible. The only line I appreciated was because of Breaking Bad, weirdly enough. Kat's character laments the loss of the meth addict because she was such a good cleaner. Based on my wealth of knowledge about tweakers, thanks to Breaking Bad, I had to chuckle at this. It was the one and only laugh and it had more to do with another show than this one. Show fail.

Pilot Grade (well, the first 7 minutes at least): F

**Update: Having read on AV Club that the second half of the pilot was considerably better than the first, I decided to plow through the rest of the episode. Indeed, the second half was far better than the first. That doesn't mean it's a good show, but puts it at the level of simply "awful" rather than "please dear god, kill me". Baby steps.

Pilot Grade (the entire episode this time): D


THE PLAYBOY CLUB

Dear Religious Nutbags, Conservative Right-Wing Censors, and The Parents' Television Council: Maybe you should actually see a show before condemning it. I'm not saying The Playboy Club is an excellent show that is truly deserving of millions of viewers or anything, but the reason people should tune out is that it simply isn't very good, not because it's smutty or racy or licentious or whatever it is you morons think it is.

This show was tame, people. Insanely tame. I'm actually kind of surprised at just how tame it was. Any show that knew what it was doing would take the right wing condemnation and run with it (a la Gossip Girl appropriating the comments from the Parents' Television Council into their advertising), but The Playboy Club was more wholesome than any random episode of any procedural cop show that I've ever seen. The one and only sex scene, if you can really call it that, showed nothing really and was between a long-term couple who've been discussing getting married. SCANDAL! Oh sure, it's all fine and good to show women being brutally gang-raped and murdered on every episode of every procedural on TV, but The Playboy Club, with its lack of nudity, sex, foul language, and serious violence, that's going too far! Stupid, delusional hypocrites, every one of them.

Anyway, now that that's out of my system, like I said, the reason to bow out of The Playboy Club is that it's just not a very good show. The setting is the 1960s, specifically the Playboy Club and Playboy Mansion, but they seem to be set pieces rather than an actual atmosphere. Where Mad Men creates a milieu of the 60s that you get swept up in, The Playboy Club seems to have rummaged through a few thrift stores and garage sales looking for old stuff to fill the scene. I've seen more than a few critiques that his show is trying to be Mad Men, but really, they have a similar setting, but are wholly different animals in execution. Mad Men is unflinching in its portrayal of the 60s, imbuing each scene, character, and interaction with the social mores of the time. The Playboy Club casually alludes to such issues of race and gender, but isn't willing to dive in or let such things influence a scene in any substantive way.

While the atmosphere is weak, the storyline is worse. The show tries to set up a twisty, thrilling, dangerous narrative right off the bat, but doesn't bother to establish any of the characters first, so the twists and turns and suspense are totally wasted. Literally, within the first ten minutes of the pilot, main bunny Amber Heard (I haven't the slightest idea what her character name is) goes from working the floor at the Playboy Club, killing a would-be rapist in self defense, and helping main guy Eddie Cibrian dispose of the guy's body because he's apparently a murderous mobster or something. So yeah, within minutes, a man and woman I don't know and don't care about are in mortal peril with the threat of exposure hanging over their heads. Yep, don't care. If they wanted this pilot to work, they should have spent the pilot establishing this world and these people, only to have the guy's death come at the very end. If I even kind of cared about these people, I might have enjoyed the pilot more, but as is, the narrative just seems to be random things happening to pretty faces. That's simply not enough to invest in. Especially with the acting as poor as it was.

The supporting cast had a lot more going for it (with Carol Lynn being far and away the best part of the show), but not enough screentime to get me invested. It's hardly worth recalling the details, but the biggest thrills came in the realization that Simon Tam and Mr. Universe were among the cast. Sure they're wasted and all, but it was still nice to see some faces that I actually cared about. A nice change of pace, really. I found myself investing in their characters based on their past roles alone, which is not a good sign for their current show.

It wasn't the worst pilot I've ever seen before, but it just didn't have enough panache or polish to pull off this conceit. I've heard that the pilot underwent some serious retooling prior to air and I can tell. From the trailer, it looked far worse than it was. Unfortunately, such efforts may have spared The Playboy Club from the bottom of the barrel, but hardly raised it to the top of the heap. Quite frankly, I think my perceptions of the show were mostly colored by the fact that I watched this right after 2 Broke Girls. Compared to that piece of shit, this really didn't seem all that terrible, you know? I at least finished the pilot for this one.

Pilot Grade: C-