(Best Friends Forever begins its 6-episode first season tonight at 8:30pm on NBC.)
At this point in the season, NBC is throwing pilots against the wall and seeing what sticks (or at least, slides down the wall slow enough that someone pays attention to it). One of those shows is the ill-fated Best Friends Forever, a high-energy comedy about best friends reunited under one roof after three years apart, where one had left in dramatic fashion. Unfortunately, thin characters and terrible writing dooms it pretty early on, and by the time the show gets to its emotional moment at the end, you’re just waiting for it to be over.
The show stars Lennon Parham (Accidentally on Purpose) and Jessica St. Clair (Bridesmaids) – who are also co-creators, writers and producers – as two former room mates reunited when Jessica’s husband sends her divorce papers via FedEx. Without hesitation, she moves from San Fran to Brooklyn to live with Lennon and her live-in boyfriend, Joe (newcomer Luka Jones). The rest of the episode revolves around an old Sunday tradition Lennon & Clair used to have, and Joe trying to both fit into their friendship, and plan a surprise for Lennon.
First of all, the show isn’t funny. There wasn’t a single joke in the episode that really hit home, although I did find Lennon’s Mel Gibson impersonation amusing (not that the Braveheart jokes weren’t all played out, and much funnier on Cougar Town). But what really bothered me is how unlikable Jessica’s character was. For the first part of the episode, she was the ‘broken-hearted fiancee’ who just wants to cry on the couch and watch some emotional chick flick in silence (Steel Magnolias, because girls just relate to Julia Roberts and her big mouth). She then transforms into a short-sighted, insecure, selfish chatterbox of annoying phrases and even more annoying tendencies, stomping through every scene with crazy eyes for the latter half.
It’s not a flattering character for St. Clair, and the character’s intrusion on every aspect of the show’s universe isn’t encouraging. BFF tries hard to establish a definitive time line (count how many times you hear the phrase ‘3 years ago’) for the show, vaguely mapping out important events that happened…. three years before the show started. From what I understand, Jessica had two men in love with her, she got engaged to one, the other, Rav, made the romantic stand and punched the guy in the face, and she left him with a bloody hand in silence for three years across the country as her husband cheated on her.
Now she’s home, and guess where this show is going to go? Rav and Jess are obviously going to get together, and the only other storyline the show tries to offer up is Jess as the third wheel in the house. Annoying, one-dimensional characters like hers are normally relegated to the background, and as the star of the show, her in-your-face, loud, fast-paced line readings is going to grind viewers down. She’s everything female characters on TV shouldn’t be: loud, obnoxious, self-centered, shallow, and over-the-top emotional.
Since Lennon is written as her opposite – an obvious attempt to make it a more ‘mature’ female duo comedy – which actually makes her a cool character. I’d like to watch a show of her and Joe trying to make their relationship work in Brooklyn, because they have a nice, natural ebb to their relationship – and as everyone makes pretty clear, is a bit of a departure from the Lennon that Jessica’s always known.
If I were to make one suggestion to fix the show, it would be to pull back the time line four years. Let’s see Lennon and Jessica as young, single women, and integrate the presence of Joe into Lennon’s life, and let Jessica be the girl who’s trying to figure out her life while having to deal with a changing relationship of her best friend. Instead of giving us the ‘girl comes home and things have changed, but she hasn’t’ story we’ve seen a billion times, it would allow the writers to build this strong friendship between Lennon and Jessica, instead of trying to weave all this important historical character information throughout the show.
With only six episodes ordered, there’s a 95% chance already this show doesn’t get renewed for a full season. And nobody will miss it: the improvisational parts are obvious and terrible, and thanks to a grating, shallow main character, it’s not going to take long for people to tune out. Even Fred Savage directing the pilot can’t help this underdeveloped mess of a buddy comedy.
Other thoughts/observations:
- why do all new comedies have guys who spill emotions over video game headsets? It’s really not that realistic, and screams of “let’s make things feel MODERN.” It annoys me.
- a lazy Sunday that’s not lazy? WHAT AN IRONIC TITLE.
- was that a proposal at the end? the whole episode built up to that awkward interaction in the bathroom… I’ve seen better professions of love between gravestones.
- what did we learn about women today? If they live together they get fat, they like to sit and cry on the couch, and they like to make hairy vagina jokes to each other. I feel smart now.
- The most annoying thing Jessica said in the pilot? “Nobody listens to me,” except the entire fucking episode is Jessica talking over everyone so they listen to her. CMON DUDE.
