September is here, which means (as always) that the Dodgers have been statistically eliminated from playoff contention for the past month, the Niners are faking a competitive streak that will end around week 5, and TV networks are rolling out new shows in the annual battle of "which will be least offensive to Middle America?"
So far, there haven't been that many clear pilot season successes. "Person of Interest" features Ben Linus and Jesus using a weird, Morgan Freeman in Dark Knight/Patriot Act machine that gives you the social security number of someone who is either a victim or a perpetrator of a crime. Yep. That's the best, most accessible drama of 2011 so far. Did I mention that Jim Caviezel's best friend is a talking pie?
Then you've got a show about dinosaurs (I believe it's called "Whitney"), a couple Mad Men rip offs, a couple "Fables" knock offs, and a Hank Azaria show that destroyed Vegas bookies when it shockingly wasn't canceled midway through the first episode.
We're two weeks in, and CBS' 2 Broke Girls seems to be the only true breakout hit of the new season.
Rather simple concept. You have two girls (presumably both broke), with a difference. One is a prissy, fallen socialite with no money, no real world experience. The other is a brusque, street wise waitress who sleeps with a knife under her pillow and has no problem using the word "vagina" in daily conversation. Get it yet? They're different! They're like night and day. Moon and sun. Cain and Abel. Pinky and the Brain. North and South Korea. Tango and Sundance. Abbott and Hardy. Get it yet? Because this show will keep bludgeoning you over the head with how entirely different these two girls are. Get it?
I have no problem with Odd Couple relationships, particularly when one is a hot blonde who vaguely resembles an ex of mine (to all you Community fans, that's called an "explanabrag"). My problem is that it is simply a derivative, tedious show whose jokes were written in 2007 and sat in an oaken cask, aging for four years until no longer topical. The leads have zero comedic timing. The writing style tells, never shows. Oh, and it's averaged about 15 million viewers per episode.
In other words, it's a successful sitcom that I, myself, did not write. You what that means...
TIME TO BURY THIS SHOW UNDER AN AVALANCHE OF SNARK. That's right. Winter is Coming. So says Eddard Snark.
First off, the show's jokes are a hodgepodge of leftover Jay Leno monologue gags. Imagine if the Family Guy idea balls only contained blurbs from last month's issue of US Weekly. And instead of manatees, you have veterans of the Sex and the City writing staff picking and choosing.
The pilot pokes fun at: Arnold Schwarzenegger's maid, Bernie Madoff, Brangelina, Paris Hilton, The Secret, Tasers, Arcade Fire, Stereotypical Hipsters, Stereotypical Asians, Stereotypical Russians, Red Velvet cupcakes, Semen stains, and the fact that "come" and "wet" have dual meanings. While I recognize that Aaron Sorkin and Steven Moffat cannot write every hour of television, I'd hope that if any writers' room came up with a "Tiger Woods' golf club" joke in 2011, they would have the professional courtesy to burn the script pages and salt the earth from which the paper grew.
When I voice my objections about this show, people (read: 75% of my office) often reply: "But Kat Dennings has huge breasts. You must enjoy that aspect of the show's mythology." True, they are large. But that doesn't make them enjoyable. I have long argued that there is an uncanny valley for female breasts. More of an Uncanny Plateau, to be topographically correct.
There comes a point where breasts stop being fun to stare at, and just monstrously huge. Bigger doesn't always mean better, particularly when disproportionate. So big that they threaten the city of Tokyo. Melons that look as though Gallagher is going to smash them with a sledgehammer. Tits with their own gravitational pull are not a selling point. Kat Dennings resides just past that Uncanny Plateau and I will have no part in the pagan rituals that worship her bad mammary jammers (3:1 odds that line ends up in a future episode).
Either way, after suffering through 44 minutes of this dreck, I give you a list of
Things I Would Rather Watch than Another Episode of 2 Broke Girls:
- Willis McGahee's knee injury in slow motion
- Anime that gives you seizures
- A PBS pledge break hosted by Jeff Goldblum
- Surgeons separating Siamese twins
- Transformers 3, edited so as to remove any robots or supermodels
- Blind children playing freeze tag
- Matt Stairs facing Jonathan Broxton on endless loop.
- Pearl Harbor. And I don't mean the movie. I mean footage of the actual attack.
- Someone splashing paint on grass, then watching as it both dries and grows
- SNL's "The Best of Horatio Sanz"
- The last five rounds of any fantasy sports draft. Three minute picks, and no one is on AutoDraft.
- Anna Faris reciting Hamlet, directed by Brett Ratner
- A compilation of every John Cena title victory
- Downton Abbey. Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed Downton Abbey. No sarcasm here. Best mini-series of the new millennium. It's on Netflix Streaming. Watch it now. Julian Fellowes' finest work since Gosford Park.
- Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals. Eddie House? Honestly?
- A Turtle-centric episode of Entourage
- A sex tape starring Ian McKellen and Judi Dench
- Chelsea Handler guest starring on an episode of Glee dedicated to the music of Katy Perry-- Wait. That one goes over the line.
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It seems that 2 Broke Girls exists only to inspire anger, enmity and spite inside me. Needless to say, I'll keep watching it. Otherwise, I'd have nothing to blog about other than my lack of career and personal fulfillment.
Stay tuned for next week's installment: Why "New Girl" makes getting waterboarded feel like 18 holes of miniature golf.
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