Some sitcoms are funny, at least some of the time. Community, 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother (sometimes) and The League come to mind.
Some sitcoms are funny to people that aren’t me. These include Two and A Half Men, the new one with the lady from Raymond, Growing Pains, Mike and Molly (probably) and anything else.
Here is the thing though, some of these shows were going to be funny. You can just see it, and they got fucked up.
2 Broke Girls is one of those shows.
Now I usually don’t judge a show from its pilot, but this one I did, because it could have been funny and I wanted to like it. It was unwatchable. The first 10 minutes featured a really bad joke about a vagina, hipsters being too hip, and lots of sweet sweet abs. I was giving it some slack because it was a pilot.
Then came the subway scene.
Main character standing on morning commute subway. Subway stops short and main character, not ready for it, is pushed forward to well braced, stout, African-American woman. Through sheer chance, their lips touch. Smooch!
This was funny. Nothing more needed to be said. I believe nothing was originally written for this. Instead, main character says “Well, I can cross that off my bucket list.”
Painful. First of all, it is confusing. Cross what off? Kissing a woman? Kissing an African-American woman? Kissing a stranger on a subway? It is borderline homophobic and racist while not funny at all. It is a joke that only leads to canned laughter, and the intro to a scene.
(More useless plot on subway with 3rd party)
Toward the end of the scene, the subway is stopping and the scene is winding down. Just to make sure we got the first joke, the African-American woman comes back in the scene and gives main character a card and says simply “Call me.” Main character gives a facial look that is half “What a crazy world” and half “I just ate a vomit burrito.”
And it made it worse. It is so much worse than 2 and ½ Men because it had a chance.
Aaaaaaand….. SCENE
I just want to be clear that you hated everything about this show, but you were cutting it some slack because it was the pilot episode. The first ten minutes of the show were “unwatchable,” but you watched, waiting for it to get better.
There was a single scene, that, if it had been left without dialogue, might have been funny. Dialogue was added that made the scene not only unfunny, but offensive and painful to watch. You kept watching.
There was more “useless plot,” and then more dialogue and character interaction that made what was once merely unfunny, offensive, and painful . . . worse.
Your notion that this show might have had a chance to be a good show is based on a single silent scene?
Huh.
You have impossibly low standards, babe.
Check out Louie on FX.
Seriously.