Sunday, November 15, 2009

A not-so-well kept 'Secret,' unfortunately


There aren't enough scantily-clad and attractive women, dick jokes and interesting vantage points to save the abomination that is Secret Girlfriend, on Comedy Central.

Comedy Central has put out some good and critically acclaimed shows in the past -- South Park, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Chappelle's Show -- because they have brilliant writing, tackle issues and are actually, funny. Fancy that, a funny show on a networked dubbed Comedy Central.

Secret Girlfriend, however, is none of that -- especially funny.

First of all, the protagonist is a faceless 20-something male, as the first-person view point is to be shared by the show's audience.

The faceless man is flanked by two lackeys, Phil and Sam, who are both roughly the same age with only one thing on their mind: Sex.

A psychotic ex-girlfriend, Mandy, chases you throughout the episode, basically imposing her will on you while you're interested in another woman, Jessica, who is significantly less insane than Mandy.

What ensues is 11 minutes of beautiful women not wearing much, jokes about sex and sex acts and a psychotic ex-girlfriend constantly loving and at the same time, hating the main character, the viewer. Then the show rinses and repeats for another 11 minutes.

Critics have described the show as back-to-back 11-minute episodes, similar to that of a Saturday morning cartoon. Perhaps that should have been the target audience for this poor excuse for a TV show.

The show was developed from a Web series of the same moniker.

A TV show with good-looking women, cleavage galore and essentially soft-core pornography -- sounds like a recipe for success, no?

No, actually.

The only thing Secret Girlfriend will accomplish is to get men (anywhere from adolescence to college-age to middle-age) to watch the women in revealing outfits and bikinis until they remember the Internet exists, where there are millions of provocative pictures of women just a few clicks of the mouse away.

The format of this show is rare, and has some potential, but that's about it. As an avid first-person video gamer, I can relate to that aspect of the show. However, said potential is limited.

Comedy Central has a (poor) history of green-lighting shows that are doomed from the beginning due to poor writing, a poor premise or poor acting; and sometimes all of the above. Secret Girlfriend is such a show.

Girlfriend takes no chances, other than the occasional partial nudity, and markets itself as 22 minutes of tits and ass. Even the promotions and commercials for this show are lame. I'd like to think we're a little more sophisticated than that in America. However, I'm constantly surprised by many things in this country. It is clear that the show recognizes what sells, but that still won't be enough to have this show reach its second birthday... or even half-birthday.

Lest we forget, this is Comedy Central, which is not exactly the benchmark when it comes to TV excellence. Needless to say, there are some great shows on the network.

There have been other shows that focus on sex and sexuality, but this show does so in such a poor fashion that it is unappealing and trite.

Perhaps this show should have remained a 'Secret.'

1/5 Stars, and that's being generous.

1 comment:

  1. Excellent review of a basically stinker program.

    I won't bother to even take a look.

    Very funny writing (funnier than the program. it sounds like), particularly with lines like this:

    'Then the show rinses and repeats for another 11 minutes.'

    Jaysus.

    Good ending, too - 'Perhaps this show should have remained a 'Secret.'

    I'll keep it one.

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