2 broke girls

I see that Salon’s Willa Paskin has written an article about how Whitney has improved, thereby saving me from fearing I was going crazy. I had been telling people that it was one of the better new comedies of the season – a very backhanded compliment, admittedly, given what this season has been like – and getting genuinely horrified reactions.

Are walking ethnic clichés better than no clichés in sitcoms?

I have to admit that I counted 2 Broke Girls out after the second episode and could never quite get back into it. I have a high tolerance for this type of sitcom, and am happy when one succeeds, but after the Sex and the City movies I don’t have a high tolerance for the work of Michael Patrick King. And the second episode of 2 Broke Girls was so weak that I just assumed it was never going to live up to the good parts of the pilot. I’m not saying all the good parts of the pilot were from Whitney Cummings, though I think she clearly has talent. It’s more that the second episode indicated that King thought the pilot was perfect the way it was, and he just had to do it again, except louder.

A new batch of reality shows is facing up to the fact we live in difficult times