I'll be honest: I downloaded the first two episodes of the series off of iTunes for free. What interested me about the show's premise was simple. James Van Der Beek, of Dawson's Creek fame, plays a version of himself as a friend of Chloe (the title B-). I've got nothing against this recent trend of actors playing themselves (see Wil Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory for a prime example of how one plays a version of oneself to perfection). I think it's an original and fun concept, especially for actors who have found themselves pigeonholed by one role in the past. In the case of Don't Trust the B-, it is also the only thing that even comes close to working.
On paper, the driving concept of the show sounds like it could be fun (if you can get past the unnecessarily profane title): June, a straight-laced young woman, moves to New York and winds up roommates with another woman, Chloe, who, it turns out, makes money off of finding roommates, collecting their security deposits, and then driving them out with her deliberately heinous behavior. Unfortunately, that part of the plot is tied off in a neat little bow before the end of the pilot...at which point we descend into sitcom anarchy.
The characters:
They're at best one-dimensional caricatures - June, our main character, is the sum total of every dumb blonde joke in history. At worst, they're just plain offensive and gross - see June's neighbor, an admitted 'Peeping Tom' whose only actual companion is a blow-up doll and who occupies his time by staring through the window into June/Chloe's apartment. I get that characters on TV shows take time to develop, but the problem is, with these stock/vaguely offensive characters, there's nothing to develop. Every single one of them, especially the two leads, are cardboard cutouts of real people, not to mention idiotic stereotypes of 'the straight-laced country girl' and 'the rowdy, moral-less city chick'.
James Van Der Beek as himself is an admittedly dim 'bright spot' on the tarnished metal of this show. At least for the first 5 minutes he's onscreen. After that, you realize that the writers probably just filled a whiteboard with 'Dawson's Creek' jokes, and are going to recycle them in different forms over and over again. By the beginning of episode 2, it's abundantly clear that Van Der Beek's character is as one-note as the rest of the cast, which is a real shame.
The plot:
what little there is scrapes the bottom of the barrel. Within the course of the first two episodes, we're treated to the following things as major plot events:
- Chloe getting hot and heavy with June's fiance to prove to June that he's a cheater.
- Chloe setting June up with a guy who turns out to be her (Chloe's) married father. This is the entire plot of Ep. 2. Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little too.
- After ditching her fiance, June vows to get back on track with the ever-present, ever-cliched 'life plan'. Which, in this context, means looking for a guy to have kids with, mostly because she sees a cute baby in the hallway as the episode begins.
Honorable Mention: Chloe's mother being wheelchair-bound gets milked for laughs so much that it hurts to watch.
What struck me about the show overall is that Don't Trust the B- is a carbon copy of this year's much better 2 Broke Girls. A really, really bad carbon copy. Yes, 2 Broke Girls is raunchy, not-for-everyone comedy. But what it does have going for it is a strong cast whose characters actively defy the stereotypes so egregiously on display here.
If you want quality comedy, the last place to look is Apartment 23.
No comments:
Post a Comment