ABC felt confident enough to release the pilot episodes of two of their new Fall shows online and On Demand weeks before their premiere nights. I’ve already reviewed the inaugural installment of the drama “Forever”. Now it’s time for my thoughts on Episode 1 of the romantic comedy “Selfie”, which airs this Tuesday, September 30th at 8pmET.
50 years ago, the movie musical “My Fair Lady” was released in theaters, and it went on to win the Best Picture Oscar, beating-out fellow iconic nominees “Mary Poppins”, “Becket”, and “Dr. Strangelove”. The film starred Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Dolittle and Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins, and was based on the play ‘Pygmalion’.
A half-century later, ABC, for some reason, thought they could successfully put an ultra-modern spin on this classic with “Selfie”. Less than three minutes into watching the pilot and it was impossible to not only want to turn this off, but to search YouTube for a clip from the film to wash-away any memory of this bomb. Karen Gillan (“Doctor Who”, “Guardians of the Galaxy”) stars as Eliza Dooley, a Twitter/Facebook/Instagram obsessed 20-something who works at a pharmasutical company. We get to witness her completely fall apart aboard an airplane (including an extended vomiting scene). She realizes that, while she has plenty of internet “friends”, she has no real-life friends or social skills. Looking to change her image (not on her profile), she begs for help from her company’s marketing guru, Henry (played by “Harold & Kumar”‘s John Cho). He’s great at makeovers, but is a bit of a loner. Of course, they will now team-up and help each other.
“Selfie” does a great job of offending just about everybody in this first episode. The script is filled with racial and gender “jokes”, which are simply embarrassing for everyone involved. There are no actual funny lines or situations, nor many opportunities for them. And there’s no authentic commentary or insights on the social media phenomenon.
Series creator Emily Kapnek, who also wrote the script, tries to make every situation cute and bubbly. But with awful musical placement and several uncomfortable moments (including a squirm-inducing rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”), “Selfie” makes for #MustAvoidTV. The final segment is the best of a really bad batch, with Eliza and Henry realizing that love may be in the air. But because the premise is so basic and predictable, and the execution is so poor, there’s little chance the show will survive long enough for anything to blossom – and certainly no one will be watching if it does.
After sitting through 32 minutes of “Selfie” on my DVR (can’t FF through the commercials) there was one thing I couldn’t wait to do – hit DELETE.