Another series
for the CW that has achieved massive critical acclaim, and actually managed to
do something that almost nothing on the network manages to do - win two Emmys,
albeit not for their top performer - yet has managed to perform to an almost
non-existent audience is Crazy
Ex-Girlfriend. A series literally
unlike anything on TV these days - a musical comedy with some of the most
satirical original songs in the history of the medium - and featuring some of
the most daring original characters on TV, this series survived by the skin of
its teeth last years. It's now been put in what amounts to the TV dead zone -
Friday nights at 9 - and has been cut to 13 episodes from 18. For a network
that survives on smaller audience shares, the CW seems to be doing everything
in its power to kill this series.
Which may be one
of the great tragedies since 'Dollhouse' died a similar death. Despite all
this, 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend' remains one of the most daring shows on TV. Most of the credit for this goes to
showrunner-lead actress Rachel Bloom, who won just about every Best Actress in
a Comedy award except for the Emmy,
and seems to be doing two things in every minute of the episode: dare the blind
Emmy judges to ignore for her second straight year, and manage to charm us into
liking her while trying to avoid her complete insanity. In the first season
finale, Rebecca Bunch managed to finally win over the heart of hopelessly dim
teenage crush Josh (Vincent Rodriguez III). Unfortunately, she then told him
about her crush. And now things have gotten ridiculously awkward. They're still
having lots of sex, and he's technically living with her (mainly because his ex kicked him out in the season
finale), but there's a lot of awkwardness between them. Most of which, of
course, is Rebecca's fault. Only she would decide to disguise herself as a
ping-pong ace, then hire a twelve-year old to coach her on the game, and play
her doubles partner, just to hang out with him.
Making this all
the more awkward is the fact that for most of last season, she had an on-again,
off-again affair with Greg (Santino Fontana), Josh's closest friend. Now, she's
trying to make things better with him, only to learn that Greg is now attending
AA meetings. Which is bad enough, but it turns out he's still harboring
feelings for her.
Once again, the
parallels to an earlier WB classic,
Felicity, are apparent, except that it has become increasingly clear that
neither side of this triangle should really be with Rebecca. As one fringe
character put it so eloquently: "How is it that all my friends keep
falling in love with this woman?"
The craziness has gotten to the point that Rebecca's other close friend,
Paula, has realize just how nutty it is trying to keep up with her, and
actually made her sign a contract keeping her away from any more of this
insanity. She's now decided to try to go to law school herself, which just goes
to show how addictive Rebecca's situation is.
Have I mentioned
just how funny this series is? Last night, we had what amounted to one of the
series highpoints when Greg led an Irish drinking song about just how dangerous
alcohol was to him now, Paula had a number satirized a Disney musical which
featured a stanza on diarrhea, and an entire sequence at an AA meeting where
they discussed how important bringing doughnuts were.
I don't know if Crazy Ex-Girlfriend will survive past
its second season. The fact that its been an award winner for a network that
hasn't had many probably gives it some breathing room, but I have no idea how
much. Being cast off to Friday's following Vampire
Diaries, which is ending its run this year, hasn't helped boost it much.
But its clearly had something of a life on streaming, and its more daring than
a lot of the series being made on network TV.
I can only hope. That parts not Crazy.
My score:
4.5 stars.
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