[note: I'm about 8 episodes into season 1]

I had heard good things of this show. Still, it wasn’t until an attractive girl told me I reminded her of a character in the show that I was finally driven to watch it. If you know me, then it’s pretty obvious which character I physically resemble. Non-physically I hope we are not too similar (being in a shitty marriage never really appealed to me). But enough of the walking penis, I meant to talk about the show itself.

I don’t like it. It feels as if a writer jerked off on a typewriter and presented it to his agent. You see, the main character is a writer. And *everyone* in the show–including the man himself–can’t stop talking about what a jerk he is. Unfortunately they aren’t ever actually showing the character acting like an ass. Now, I use the term ‘ass’ here, but that doesn’t quite cover what this guy is described as. If the characters in the show are to be believed, this guy is nearly the scum of the earth. Yet, no scenes have even come close to demonstrating that. His biggest failing is that he can’t commit to any of the women he so constantly fucks because he’s still in love with the mother of his daughter. Yes, they painted his commitment-phobia in a sympathetic manner.

The other “problem” he has is that he’s too straight forward, too blunt, and can’t stand “fake” people. Which is to say: his other problem is he has exactly the same qualities that make you *like* House (the doctor dude) as a person. Yeah, he’s abrasive, but it’s a refreshing kind of abrasive.

Aside from those two things there aren’t any real meaty failings with this character. He claims he was a horrible father, but early on you see him on the phone with his daughter counting mermaids to help her fall asleep exactly like he used to. He admits, “maybe I wasn’t such a bad father.” His abrasive attitude make him the guy “man enough” to stand up for his wife when a convenient jerk insults her. This same abrasive attitude causes him to throw the phone of a noisy moviegoer across the theater, and then wrestle the moviegoer to the ground to the applause of everyone else in the theater.

Really? This is the guy we’re supposed to believe is a jerk? He goes around doing good: convinces a porn star *not* to neglect her daughter, talks his friend out of an affair (not that it helps), steals back a dog that was accidentally gifted by a jerk, helps a blisteringly hot chick pay her grocery store bill when she can’t (oh, and that ends up paying off karmically speaking), rescues a 16 year old in dire straits (the ONLY time it’s acceptable for him to actually be spending so much time with her), gives a “down on his luck” guy a ton of money for a guitar he was willing to let go for 1/10th the price… I’m sure more examples exist (and more will come). Point is, the guy can’t stop doing good!

Oh but his accolades don’t stop there. He is, apparently, SO ridonkulously sexy that women throw themselves at him ALL the time. One of the first, in fact, being only 16 (mentioned above). The rest of the series puts him up on a huge pedestal for not sleeping with her again once he learns she’s 16. Except, what he’s doing is absolutely not pedestal worthy. If a 16 year old who has slept with you is continuously following you around and you allow it to go on it’s because you dig the attention. You shouldn’t get a medal for *not* sleeping with them again. The others? He rocks their world, because that’s the kind of guy he is.

And the bad shit in his life? The first 5 or so episodes are devoted to telling you what a jerk he is, but then one of the big catalysts in the cessation of his previous relationship (the one he can’t get over) is revealed: *she* cheated on *him.* Yup! Let’s all have sympathy for him! It wasn’t his fault! So the fact that he’s constantly trying to sleep with her again even though she’s engaged is totally forgivable!

It feels as if show had been written with the intent of shooting a lot scenes showing this guy as a bad character, but someone forgot to make ‘em. So we have this “huge jerk” who never does anything bad. It’s like the opposite of the Drew Carey show. The Drew Carey show sucked because all of the characters acted like Drew was the nicest guy ever, but all his actions were totally asshole-ish. The writers didn’t *want* him to be an asshole so none of the characters recognized the fact that he was one.

In closing, the writing in this show (so far) is fucking retarded. But, nearly every episode has tits, and I like tits, and as such I will probably watch more.

Go tits!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Rant, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.