FALL TV EXTRAGANZA!!!

THE PLAYBOY CLUB

2 STARS (OUT OF 4)

There’s a fun game you can play while watching The Playboy Club, especially if you DVR’d, and can pause whenever you want. After any character in the show says a line of dialogue, pause it (but typically, you won’t have to) and come up with the most hilariously cliché line you can think of to follow it. Every time. It might seem a little tedious, but relatively to just watching the show itself, it’ll be an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride. You will be able to guess the line, and I’m just estimating here, 99.9% of the time. If you miss one, it’s probably because the line that you came up with is too clever. The Playboy Club takes place in the year 19MadMen, but it’s in Chicago, not New York, so it’s totally different than any other show you might have already seen on TV. The lead character is a womanizing, hard drinking, charismatic, business man (totally different) named Nick Dalton (see?), who spends every single night drinking and schmoozing at Hugh Hefner’s club. The front of the house is non-stop fun, filled with sexy Playboy bunnies (cocktail waitresses with rabbit ears) serving and dancing and fulfilling the wish of every 60’s middle-aged man (“Hold my hand? I don’t know. Won’t your wife be upset? MoonlandingBeatlesKennedy?) But the back of the house is filled with intrigue and murder and backstabbing and sex and so many topical debates you expect one of the characters to say “The sixties is just so…sixties.” In the end, you don’t really care, regardless of how much you were interested in the premise going in, and have nothing left to do but look at the pretty people who, in the case of this show, are led by Amber Heard, who is unbelievably hot. So, there’s that. – RH

 

 

2 BROKE GIRLS

2 STARS (OUT OF 4)

2 Broke Girls tries so hard to do…something. I’m not sure what that it, but it tries so very hard. Not so hard that it would make you like, respect, or laugh at the show or anyone involved in the show, but you will at least notice that it does try hard. It’s like watching a three year old deliver a monologue from Hamlet. OK, it’s cute I guess, but the delivery failed in almost every way. And what’s with the speech impediment? Kat Dennings, of Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist and Naked Pictures on the Internet fame stars as a waitress who has apparently been fucked by the cock of life, which leaves her hard, sarcastic, and unhappy. Beth Behrs, of 2 Broke Girls fame, stars as the daughter of a Bernie Madoff-like criminal, who, after a lifetime of having everything handed to her, is now homeless and forced to work at a diner like a piece of shit, working class asshole. I doubt even the writers noticed this, but to me, the two leads come off as very different, almost like their exact opposites, and I’m hoping this leads to conflict and hilarity during the course of the show’s six episode run. The problems with Girls are many, mighty, and seemingly insurmountable. I know the official policy here at Pop Filter is to never judge a show by its pilot, but this isn’t the type of show that goes back to the drawing board and does some tinkering. It’s too broad, and it’s audience too, for lack of a better term, fucking stupid. So if three camera sitcoms with recycled jokes from other recycled sitcoms doesn’t bother you, go right on ahead. If you aren’t white, black, Hispanic, Eastern European, gay, male, female, or Asian then I highly recommend this show, as there was not a joke made at your expense in this entire episode. Congratulations. – RH