WHITNEY “First Date” Season 1 Episode 2 – There’s a fine line between pleasantly neurotic and annoyingly nuts and with “First Date,” the second episode of Whitney, I’ve figured out which side of the line Whit falls on.
Cray-cray. Totally cray-cray. And not in a good way.
When Whitney decides that Alex needs to create the first date that they never had (because they got drunk and had sex instead–hilarious, right?) the role-playing quickly gets out of control. Employing every bad cliche of a post-first date relationship (all the planned random meetings, short skirts and lame texts), Whitney and Alex eventually find themselves living apart and barely speaking. It’s up to their wacky group of friends to help them reconnect.
I can’t help but compare Whitney to Jess from the new show New Girl. They’re both crazy, but while Jess is adorable to the point of cavity-inducing, Whitney makes me want to yank out my hair in large chunks.
Maybe it’s the laugh track; there are some shows that are so good, you can forgive the canned laughter telling you at which point the writers think you’re supposed to laugh, but this isn’t one of them. Maybe it’s the lack of chemistry between Whitney and Alex, which leads to my complete inability to figure out why they’re still together after three years.
I honestly don’t know if this show will improve. The Pollyanna in me wants to say that all new shows struggle to find themselves, but the realist in me just wants to slap Polly in the face. Because I’m not sure what “self” Whitney wants to be. Is it really just a standard half-hour comedy about a wacky couple having wacky hijinks with their wacky friends in the wacky big city? That’s all I’m getting and, frankly, every other show with this premise has done a better job.
We get that Whitney Cumming is pretty with a great body and a big mouth, but I wonder if she’s been toned down for mass consumption. Maybe her stand-up routines are better, dirtier, funnier. She needs to bring some of whatever spark put her on the map to this role. And she needs to do it quickly.
What did you think of the episode? Does a mango martini sound like the nastiest drink ever shaken together? Do you wish they’d give her divorced friend more or less lines? Let me know below!
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