Awesome
Summary
Selfie is a highly entertaining show following a formula that always works, and features terrific work by its two leads.
Plot: Self-involved pharmaceutical rep Eliza Dooley (Karen Gillan) enlists the help of uptight marketing manager Henry Higgs (John Cho) to revamp her image.
Review: Having never seen My Fair Lady, nor the George Bernard Shaw play, Pygmalion, I can’t rightly say that I’m a fan of the story. However, I know its concept, so when I recently watched the show, Selfie, I immediately thought that it was a great idea; it shows the timelessness of the story that it can continue to be used, even in material that has run 100 years after the Shaw play. Plus, who doesn’t want to watch something with Karen Gillan in it?
The setup is simple and easy to identify with – with social media, it seems that people in general have become more self-involved. Before, we may have told friends about a great meal we had at a restaurant. Now? We take photos of it and put it up on Facebook or Instagram. Never has the mundane task of eating been given so much importance, because social media has given all of us so much importance. Therefore, a vapid, self-centred pretty girl is an easy concept to digest – especially when that girl has a heart of gold and a personal image rags-to-riches-type back story.
Why this show works so well is simple: the characters and the writing. Karen Gillan is extremely likable, even when her character could be seen as shallow and one-dimensional. John Cho is comically uptight, taking everything literally. When he reveals more of a personality throughout the show, it’s delightful to think there’s a warm, yet flawed human being beneath all of those stiff shirts. Da’Vine Joy Randolph is wonderfully deadpan as the receptionist who has more depth than anyone would give her credit. David Harwood is endearingly wacky as the company owner who is both painfully rah-rah and wonderfully eccentric.
Having a great cast of characters is one thing, but the writing needs to be there. Selfie has really, really excellent writing. It’s snappy, full of one-liners and bizarre, ridiculous situations (Henry accidentally tagging himself as a breastfeeding baby in an ex-girlfriend’s pic on Facebook, Eliza’s dorky out-of-sync dance during aerobics class, Charmonique’s son crying like Eddie Murphy’s distinctive laugh). It melds the commonplace (going to a high-school reunion, a company running competition, a work evaluation) with the truly ridiculous. I was worried that the show was going to go the eye-rolling route of having the two leads hook up – and they almost went there. Almost. But in the end, they remain just friends, which is how they’re supposed to be.
Do I have any criticism of Selfie? I guess that it didn’t get more than the 13 episodes that aired. A situational comedy with that good a cast and writing doesn’t come along very often, and too many times, it usually gets cut down before it ends properly. It’s such a shame, because you can fit Selfie in the bucket. But what a terrific bunch of episodes we got. There is genuinely not a bad episode in the lot, and most of them are far better than anything running on network television these days. I am thankful that we did get 13 wonderful episodes of Selfie, and everyone involved with the show should be enormously proud of what they accomplished with the show.