Spoiler alert: Selfie isn’t that bad. BuzzFeed Entertainment staffers unite to break down the 2014–15 season’s new broadcast offerings.
ABC / NBC / CBS/Fox/The CW
You may still be mourning last season's losses of How I Met Your Mother and Raising Hope, but the upcoming 2014–2015 television season has a slew of new shows on the way.
This year, the broadcast networks are offering the usual hard-ass lady lawyers (Viola Davis' Annalise Keating on ABC's How to Get Away With Murder), quirky cop duos (played by Josh Duhamel and Dean Winters in the case of CBS's Battle Creek), and tortured superheroes (Batman's origins get the television treatment on Fox's Gotham). But, there is also an effort to shake things up this season, and literally diversify, particularly on ABC with 12 Years a Slave screenwriter John Ridley's gritty drama American Crime, Shonda Rhimes and Pete Nowalk's aforementioned Murder (which gives the Scandal creator oversight of an entire three-hour block), and some lighter fare in the form of comedies Fresh Off the Boat and black-ish.
But before we get into our first impressions, it's important to note that what follows is exactly that: These pilots we're reacting to were made available to critics by the broadcast networks and these are not reviews because everything — from the music to the dialogue to the casting — is subject to change. What hits airwaves to the American public could be drastically different from what we've seen. So, it's very possible our initial opinions upon seeing final review copies of these pilots closer to air could change. After all, some disappointing pilots have turned into some of television's greatest gems (cough 30 Rock cough).
Without further ado, let's begin with this season's biggest network risk-taker...
Selfie (Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on ABC)
What it's about: A vapid and narcissistic twentysomething, Eliza Dooley (Karen Gillan), realizes that social media friends are not true friends, and joins forces with her co-worker, Henry Higenbottam (John Cho), to rebrand herself in this update of My Fair Lady.
Jace Lacob: I’m torn on Selfie. I absolutely loved the off-kilter humor of Emily Kapnek’s Suburgatory, which often pushed itself into dark satire territory, and I’m hoping that this develops into something with a similar tone. John Cho is quite good and if Karen Gillan’s accent weren’t quite so stridently bizarre, I might have enjoyed this pilot more. There are some genuinely funny moments and throwaway lines, but how can this premise sustain itself indefinitely?
Jaimie Etkin: I too (initially) loved Suburgatory and I too have no idea how a show with such a makeover storyline could survive for a half a season let alone multiple ones. But, horrible accent (Super Fun Night syndrome strikes again), torturously extended vomit gag, and embarrassingly trendy name aside, Selfie pleasantly surprised me. And that’s in large part thanks to the charisma and chemistry of Cho and Gillan.
Verdict: The full picture is still developing. But first...
Eric McCandless / ABC
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