TV

NBC Saves Parks and Rec, Cancels Four Other Comedies

Last night I rifled off a story to my editor about up-fronts and taking wild guesses about how NBC was going to handle its’ once vaunted comedy lineup with intentions of posting it today. Between then and now, NBC took a lot of the mystery out by renewing Parks and Recreation for a sixth season and canning Guys with Kids, 1600 Penn, Whitney, and Up All Night.

Needless to say, I wasn’t shocked with any of these decisions. Parks and Rec is the closest thing NBC has to veteran hit right now, going into its’ sixth season and drawing a moderate viewership (Oh how the mighty have fallen). One could also see the network realizing how weak their slate was when they got a back nine tacked on their order this year (the season was originally supposed to be a 13 episode order like Community and 30 Rock).

Similarly, three of the four cancellations I had as inevitabilities.

1600 Penn had all the signs of a show that wasn’t going to outlive its’ first 13 episodes. It’s ratings consistently plummeted in it’s post-Office time slot, it came in at mid-season and had its’ season finale in March, it stuck out like a sore thumb in the same lineup as Community, Parks and Recreation and The Office, and last but not least it would be eventually bumped so that network favorite Go On could close out after The Office.

Up All Night, was not nearly as weak a show as 1600 Penn, but after much of the backstage turmoil you couldn’t help but think this show was going to get mercy-killed in May. Between the stars’ departures, the show runners’ departure, and an anticipated shift from single-camera to multi camera that got axed, it was tough to imagine Up All Night surviving to a third season.

Guys with Kids is the sort of show that most people were surprised made it out of its’ first six episodes, let alone a full season. It was one of those shows that existed as a way of NBC signaling its’ turn away from fairly intelligent comedy into the Lorre-esque dreck that pervades CBS.

Whitney, however, came as a little more of a surprise to me. While many people have reacted to most cancellations with a variation of “but they kept Whitney?” the impression I always got of the show was that it was the sort of show that the Peacock was never going to let die if only because it was a key part of network head Bob Greenblatt’s vision of a couple of years ago.

This leaves Go On (which I think will be renewed) and Community (which is a coin toss) as shows whose fates are to be determined, though it also signals that regardless of the situation that NBC needed to look in a new direction for its’ comedy lineup after a disastrous 2012-13 season.

UPDATE 4:20 PM: I was horribly wrong about Go On. The sitcom was just cancelled by NBC. This one surprises me a lot at it fits NBC’s strategy of bringing it’s “must-see TV” stars out of the mothballs and this series always seemed disproportionately adored by the network. I’m not sure whether this increases Community’s chances of survival (in a two similar shows one could survive sort of way) or is a potential foreboding doom (NBC manages to cancel just about anything with the intent of getting laughs from its’ schedule).

Next week is upfronts week: Keep posted to Manhattan Digest for more news and opinions!

FX Announces it’s Threefold Expansion at Upfronts

by Michael Tyminski

Today is the beginning of upfront season, that magical time where networks make big announcements about the future of their channels in addition to what shiny new shows will hit your airwaves in the fall and what shiny old shows will get more episodes in the upcoming year.

According to Broadcast and Cable, the big news from FX is that it will expand from one channel into three. FX will continue to market to its’ 18 to 49 year old demographic, while launching spin-off channels to target both the older and younger portion of those markets. FXX (which will replace the current Fox Soccer Channel) will target younger audiences, with a focus on raunchier comedies such as The League. This network will launch in September. FXM meanwhile, will target the older viewers in the 25 to 54 year old bracket, and will focus on a robust set of movie and miniseries offerings.

The network will also have the shows to fill these precious programming hours by renewing hit series such as It’s Always Sunny, The League, Justified, Legit and Sons of Anarchy (Archer received a fifth season earlier this month as well), but also with a bevy of acquired syndicated programming including CBS’ Mike and Molly, How I Met Your Mother, to prop up the finances for its’ more critically acclaimed original programming. Particularly notable is FX’s increased willingness to get into the late night game, expanding Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell to five nights a week.

FX president John Landgraf also announced some new series such as one based on the film Fargo (the Coen brothers are confirmed to be involved on the project) and Guillermo Del’ Toro’s The Strain. FX anticipates rotating 25 original series (which is roughly the same amount of programming as the big four networks provide) through the three networks during a given year.

This decision shows the burgeoning strength of FX in the basic cable market, with only USA as a credible rival on that tier. The three channel plan almost makes the network closer in nature to the premium channel layouts of HBO, Showtime, or Starz, where multiple networks under the same branding is commonplace. Furthermore, FX’s track record has been incredibly strong over the past few years (the only flop in recent memory was Unsupervised), so expanding the network to provide more quality programming is welcomed by yours truly in the hopes that I can even further reduce the number of reality shows I have to review. It also brings FX into line with a current trend in cable, where networks tend to focus on comedy or drama but not both (as an example TBS and TNT went all comedy and drama respectively to further delineate their brands, and even a broader channel like USA tends to lean much more heavily towards drama). The massive roster of top tier talent that they are assembling for this expansion further increases the odds for success. Finally, this feels like a huge corporate coup for News Corp. as a whole, as it can turn two flailing networks (SPEED and Fox Soccer Channel) into two potentially successful networks (in Fox Sports One and FXX).

55th Annual Grammy Awards Live Coverage!

by Michael Tyminski

8pm Eastern Time tonight, CBS

CBS standards and practices is desperately trying to avoid a repeat of this (Photo Source: Wikipedia)

7:30 pm Eastern: Good Evening! Welcome to what will be the first of many Manhattan Digest awards ceremony liveblogs! LL Cool J hosts the ceremony, which starts at 8 pm Eastern time on CBS. This should be an interesting evening tonight, with the Album of the Year award showing a surprisingly rock heavy slate with Mumford and Sons’ Babel, Fun.’s Some Nights, The Black Keys’ El Camino, and Jack White’s Blunderbuss, with Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange being the sole R&B outlier. Personally, I think that Babel and Channel Orange are the clear favorites, with Channel Orange being my pick to win the whole thing.

That being said, I’m here mostly to look at the show in terms of its’ presentation than to heavily critique the award choices themselves. The Grammy’s are known mostly for being the safest show on the February awards season, often only garnering attention for a killer performance (such as Elton John and Eminem’s killer performance of “Stan” in 2001), or some truly horrendous fashion calls (see Jennifer Lopez’s infamous green dress from the 2000 show). The latter is under intense scrutiny this year, as earlier this week CBS standards and practices sent out a letter vilifying the use of thongs or costumes that allow for exposed “breasts and buttocks”, singling out that earth-shattering corrupter of morals: the thong. Needless to say, my gut instinct is telling me that someone is going to find a way to defy this (odds on favorite here? Rihanna).

I would love for tonight to be a dialogue as we all react to the show together (and get different opinions at the same time), so feel free to use the comments section below and get involved in the conversation! Stay tuned to Manhattan Digest for more updates as the ceremony unfolds!

Taylor Swift at the Grammy Red Carpet (Source Grammys.com)

7:45 p.m.: Some early updates from the red carpet. Generally speaking it looks like the artists are complying with the S+P guidelines, with only a handful of particularly deep plunging necklines (including Miranda Lambert and Ashanti). Similarly the men seem pretty buttoned up, with a surprisingly large number of skinny ties. I think Taylor Swift’s dress was pretty impressive from a fashion standpoint. Conversely, Adele’s floral print design leaves a lot to be desired.

For me though, the highlight of the red carpet was Jennifer Lopez’s angry shrieks of protest after Ryan Seacrest noted that her dress was skirting the lines of what CBS was allowing screaming “I’m just showing a little leg and a little shoulder!”.

7:57 p.m.: Three minutes to the curtain and a large number of the awards have been given off camera already. Notable award winners included Gotye (who won two awards including Best Alternative Music Album, and Best Duo/Group Pop Performance – the latter with Kimbra for “Somebody that I Used to Know”), Skrillex (who also wont two awards for Best Dance Album and Best Dance Recording both for Bangarang), Rihanna (for her video for “We Found Love”), and Taylor Swift (for Best Song Written for Visual Media ).

Additionally it was announced on the red carpet that Ms. Swift will be the opening performance tonight, so expect to see her on your TV screens sometime in the next few minutes.

8:15 PM: And on cue we open with a weird man on a bike with a torch to introduce Taylor Swift who opens the show with “We are Never (Getting Back Together)” in a very sideshow circus vibe that involved a boyfriend strapped to a carnival wheel, trapeze artists, fire spinners and a large amount of pyrotechnics. The performance itself was pretty mediocre in spite of the spectacle, but it seemed like a fine way to amp up the crowd for tonight’s show.

Afterwords, we see our first appearance of show host, LL Cool J. He devotes his somewhat meandering opening monologue discussing music as a vehicle for bringing people together before pitching it to Eddie Sheeran and Elton John to perform Sheeran’s song “A Team”. I love Elton John as much as anyone, but it seemed like he was off for most of the song and it adversely affected the vocal harmonies. I did enjoy the off in the crowd staging aspect that they used, as it seemed to highlight the “lighter song” vibe that one gets when listening to “A-team”.

Fun. Performing Carry On (Source Grammys.com)

8:27 PM: LL Cool J asks us to use #Grammys when talking about tonight’s show before kicking it to J-Lo and Pitbull (with a split screen to the infamous green dress from 2000) with Pitbull fawning over J Lo before announcing the nominees for best solo pop performance:

The nominees are:
“Stronger” (Kelly Clarkson), “Set Fire to the Rain” (Adele), “Wide Awake” (Katy Perry), “Call Me Maybe” (Carly Rae Jespen) and “Where Have You Been?” (Rihanna)

AND THE WINNER: Set Fire to the Rain by Adele.

Adele gives a very brief speech (in which she called back to last year’s six wins) before Neil Patrick Harris enters to introduce Fun. (whom have six nominations this evening). Fun. then took the opportunity to play “Carry On.”, which started a little slow but picked up once the instruments kicked in. Once it built, we got a performance with a very strong cinematic vibe, including the obligatory downpour towards the end. One thing did bother me about the performance however, and that is why frontman Nate Ruess wore those Capris?

8:48 PM: Bonnie Raitt and John Mayer appear to introduce Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley. The duo play a couple of country tracks in “Over You” and “Home”. Their performance was perfectly fine and fairly low key compared to the immediately preceding performance before cutting to LL Cool J on American Bandstand in an awkward transition. LL then takes the opportunity to pay tribute to Dick Clark.

LL Cool J then makes an another abrupt transition, introducing Miguel and Wiz Khalifa, whom perform “Adorn” . The performance was sizzling, with Miguel showing off his pipes and performing the standard issue R and B theatrics. From there, our performer then announced the nominees for…wait for it…best country solo performance (because that made sense to me too right?)

The nominees for best country solo performance:
“Home” (Dierks Bentley), “Springsteen” (Eric Church), “Cost of Living” (Ronnie Dunn), “Wanted (Hunter Hayes), “Over (Blake Shelton), and “Blown Away” (Carrie Underwood)

AND THE WINNER IS: “Blown Away” by Carrie Underwood.

8:58 PM: LL Plugs social media again before telling everyone in the Northeast to stay warm and kicking it to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, whom are presenting song of the year.

The nominees are: “Adorn” (Miguel), “The A-Team” (Ed Sheeran), “Call Me Maybe” (Carly Rae Jespen), “We are Young” (Fun. Feat Janelle Monae), and “Stronger” (Kelly Clarkson).

AND YOUR WINNER: “We Are Young” by (the now completely dry) Fun.

Nate Ruess gives a speech that has the first real crack of the night in “I don’t know what we’re thinking writing this chorus, now that we’re in HD and you can see our faces, we are clearly not young.”. They then thank Jay-Z (who mouths a “You’re Welcome” from the crowd) and Chick Corea before the orchestra kicks in to introduce Johnny Depp. I want them to win more awards now because they are clearly the only people so far who have not taken this awards show too seriously tonight.

Depp is there to introduce Mumford and Sons in 20 words or less. They play their hit “I will wait” in front of a large display of lights and had an excellent performance aside from some sound issues that seemed to keep the backing vocals from coming through, though the remainder of the sound was very impressive.

Justin Timberlake performs at the 2013 Grammy Awards (source: Grammys.com)

9:15 PM: We return to Ellen Degeneres and Beyonce (in a pantsuit tonight) whom do a shticky introuction for Justin Timberlake, whom is here to perform “Suit and Tie”. The screen goes black and white, which is probably not a right call because it makes Justin Timberlake look disturbingly like Rick Astley. Jay-Z then climbs on stage to perform his verse. The screen then goes color befor Justin does a new song with a full orchestra and band (Update: The song is titled “Pusher Love Girl”). All internet memes aside, the performance is excellent and realizing the irony in saying this about someone whose only a few years older than myself, he still clearly has it.

Following that performance, we next see presenters Kelly Rowland and Nas, whom announce the nominees for a new category: Best Urban Contemporary Album

Fortune (Chris Brown), Kaliedoscope Dream (Miguel), Channel Orange (Frank Ocean)

AND THE WINNER: Channel Orange by Frank Ocean

9:30 PM:

During the commercial, we saw a hard release date for Justin Timberlake’s new album, which will drop on March 19^th.

Dave Grohl and Pauley Perette (Abby from NCIS) whom are here to announce that Dan Auerbach won producer of the year earlier in the day, before presenting the award for best Rock Performance

“Hold On” (Alabama Shakes), “Lonely Boy” (The Black Keys), “Charlie Brown” (Coldplay), “I Will Wait”, (Mumford and Sons) and

“We take care of our own” (Bruce Springsteen).

AND THE WINNER: “Lonely Boy” by the Black Keys

Following that, Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys perform “Room on Fire” and “Daylight”. While Maroon 5’s performance of Daylight was fine, “Girl on Fire” felt a little flat at points. This was a bit troubling as if there are two vocal artists who not only can, but are expected to let their vocals soar, it’s Adam Levine and Alicia Keys.

Kaley Cuoco and Keith Urban next came out to introduce the award for “Best Pop Vocal Album”. The nominees were:

Stronger (Kelly Clarkson), Ceremonials (Florence and the Machine), Some Nights (Fun.). Overexposed (Maroon 5), and The Truth About Love (Pink).

AND THE WINNER: Stronger by Kelly Clarkson

Kelly comes up and wings an acceptance speech, where she mentions being “stuck to Miranda Lambert” and expressed interest in working with Miguel. It was truly spontaneous and very welcome in this very overstuffed and seemingly overscripted show.

9:55 PM: After a performance from Rihanna that had shades of Adele’s performance of “Someone Like You” from last year, Carly Rae Jespen and Ne-Yo come out to present the award for best Rap/Sung collaboration

“Wild Ones” (Flo-Rida f. Sia), “Tonight” (John Legend f. Ludacris), “Cherry Wine ‘ (Nas f. Amy Winehouse), “Talk that Talk” (Rihanna f. Jay Z), and “No Church in the Wild” (Jay-Z/Kanye West feat. Frank Ocean and the Dream)

AND THE WINNER: No Church in the Wild by Jay-Z and Kanye West featuring Frank Ocean and the Dream.

In a classy move, Jay-Z gave most of the speech to Frank Ocean and the Dream, whom both give quick shout outs. Jay-Z on the other hand, simply thanks “The swap meet, because that’s where he (The Dream) got that hat.”

10:02 PM: The Lifetime Achievement award was announced with The Temptations, Carole King, Ravi Shankar, Patty Page, Glenn Gould, Charlie Haden, and Lightning Hopkins amongst the recipients.

After the break, Kat Dennings comes out to introduce the Black Keys, Dr. John, and the New Orleans Preservation Hall Band. All parties involved come out rocking, performing the Black Keys’ hit “Lonely Boy”. While I am typically not a fan of brass instruments in Rock Music. Adding to the proceedings was Dr. John, whom was dressed about as outlandishly as one could possibly be on a grammy stage, in full Hoodoo gear. It was a great performance, I do with it would have highlighted Dr. John a little more.
This was then followed up by Kelly Clarkson performing a medley including “Tennessee Waltz”, “Natural Woman”, in order to honor Patti Page and Carole King. This then segued into the nominations for best country album.

The nominees are: Uncaged (Zac Brown Band), Hunter Hayes (Hunter Hayes), Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran (Jamey Johnson), For the Record (Miranda Lambert), The Time Jumpers (The Time Jumpers)

AND THE WINNER: The Zac Brown Band’s Uncaged.

Bruno Mars and Rihanna during the Bob Marley Tribute (Source Grammys.com)

10:13 PM: We now get the Grammy’s tribute to Bob Marley with Bruno Mars, Sting, Damian and Ziggy Marley. The tribute started with Bruno Mars, who performed his hit single “Locked out of Heaven”. After the first chorus Sting came out in a fun moment as “Locked out of Heaven” is really Bruno Mars’ attempt at writing a police song. This then segued into The Police’s “Walking on the Moon”. This performance has been the best of the show so far, as Bruno hung out there with Sting and didn’t look out of place, though it looked like Sting initially hindered by the fact that “Locked out” was sped up.

Midway through the performance, Rihanna, Damian and Ziggy Marley came out and performed “Could You be Loved”. This actually created a largeness to the performance that made it feel more worthy of the Grammy stage, eclipsing even Rihanna’s prior appearance 15 minutes earlier.

10:30 PM: LL introduces The Lumineers, whom perform their hit single “Ho Hey”. The performance seemed perfectly servicable, and it seems like they have fixed the microphone problems from earlier. This then swept into Jack White’s performance of “Love Interruption”. After the completion of “Love Interruption.” Jack then exploded into “Freedom at 21”, giving the perfect loud kick after two quieter songs.

Katy Perry is now out to present the Best New Artist award. She marvels at the dedication it takes to get to that point before offering a little solace for those who didn’t win, saying: “I didn’t even get nominated for best new artist, but now I have my own eyelash line!”

The nominees are: Alabama Shakes, Fun., Hunter Hayes, The Lumineers, Frank Ocean

AND THE WINNER: Fun. (Fun has taken two Grammys tonight, I think they are now very much in the discussion for Album of the Year).

I think this one is a little bit of a shocker, I was pretty sure Frank Ocean was going to be a mortal lock for this one.

Hour three right now seems to have been a lot kinder to this show than the first two hours.

Carrie Underwood and her projection screen dress (Source: Grammys.com)

10:45 PM: And apparently I jinxed everyone (sorry!).

Hunter Hayes is out to sing (I wasn’t impressed, but I’m not a country guy) before introducing Carrie Underwood, who then sung two of her songs. Carrie’s vocals did not feel particularly impressive, but the lighting for this was particularly impressive as they used Carrie’s dress as a proxy for a projection screen, allowing for a neat visual that worked out superbly.

After this, Prince made a rare appearance to present Record of the Year, looking like a hybrid of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Puff Daddy.

The Nominees are:
“Lonely Boy” (The Black Keys), “Stronger” (Kelly Clarkson), “We are Young” (Fun.),“Somebody That I Used to Know” (Gotye f. Kimbra), “Thinking About You” (Frank Ocean), “We are never ever Getting Back Together” (Taylor Swift).

AND THE WINNER: “Somebody That I used to Know” by Gotye f. Kimbra.

11:04 PM: We come back to “Take Five” (no introduction, but it’s one of my favorite Jazz songs of all time, so uh, I know it…and now you do too.) for what I’m assuming is the tribute to Dave Brubeck as performed by Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, and Kenny Garrett.

Neal Portnow and Ryan Seacrest (who’s now the honorary chairman of the Grammy Foundation) are out to introduce Justin Timberlake. Mr. Timberlake comes out to shill for the Grammy Foundation and the new “music educator” award.

We now get the in Memorian Montage, which includes Dave Brubeck, Donna Summer, Andy Williams, Chuck Brown, Robin Gibb, Patti Page, Davy Jones , Dick Clark, Fontella Bass, Hal David, Marvin Hamlish, Richard Adler, Andy Griffith, Ravi Shankar, Adam Yauch (Adrock of the Beastie Boys), Levon Helm and others. Looking back at that last sentence, it seems like every genre of music took a heavy loss in 2012.

This then leads to a tribute to Levon Helm fronted by Elton John, Zac Brown, Mumford and Sons, T-Bone Burnett, Mavis Staples, Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes as they played “The Weight”. This performance had a looser jam band performance due to the larger nature of this collaboration. Elton seemed a lot stronger in this performance than his earlier performance with Eddie Sheeran. This performance is easily in the upper echelon of performances tonight.

11:18 PM: We return to Juanes paying tribute to Elton John singing “Your Song” in English and Spanish in a very intimate acoustic vibe before kicking it to Frank Ocean, who’s performing his single “Forrest Gump”. They start with a cool visual effect where Frank is running on a video screen before completing his run up a hill to his keyboard in person. Frank wrenched a ton of emotion into this one and it created an excellent and haunting performance

We’re down to one last award, Album of the Year, and Adele is here to award it after making a quick crack about she got knocked up after winning Album of the Year last year.

The Nominees are:

El Camino (The Black Keys), Channel ORANGE (Frank Ocean), Blunderbuss (Jack White), Some Nights (Fun.),Babel (Mumford and Sons)

AND YOUR WINNER: Babel by Mumford and Sons.

A pretty deserving winner and one of my favorites from earlier. They managed to spread the love around somewhat with only Jack White not making the winner’s podium during the course of the show tonight.

11:42 PM: We’re down to the grand finale, a performance by LL Cool J, Chuck D, Tom Morello, Travis Barker, and DJ Z-Trip, whom performed “Whaddup”, which was a fun way to end the show if only because Chuck D’s voice IS rap to me, and LL was game. It was a pretty solid performance and I would kill to see the single, though it would not have killed CBS not to stick fee plugs in the middle of the song.

My Final Thoughts: This year’s Grammy ceremony felt a little overstuffed with tons of abrupt transitions and sequences and with a little bit of breathing room we could have cut some of the weaker performances (notably the lacking Maroon 5/Alicia Keys collaboration and Hunter Hayes’ introduction of an introduction). Additionally, at times the show had a somber, joyless feel at points during a night that should be the biggest party for the music industry of the year. That being said, what you expected to deliver did deliver (the Marley and Levon Helms’ tributes, as well your Album of the Year candidates’ performances), so check out those seven performances.

Also some enjoyable moments I didn’t get to point out amid the I Love Lucy Conveyor Belt pace of the show:

Taylor Swift was rocking out to EVERYTHING. I’m not sure why, but this is really amusing to me.
The full extent of Kelly Clarkson’s gushing about R+B artist Miguel
Once the show hit hour three and it slowed down a little bit, it seemed like the show was able to gel a little more as the orchestra wasn’t cutting off awards speeches at the 30 second mark as it did for Fun.’s first speech

Final Verdict: If you haven’t seen the whole show, it’s probably not worth watching all three hours. You owe it to yourself to YouTube up the Marley tribute though, and I would probably check out Fun.’s , Jack White’s, and the Black Keys’ performances as well. LL Cool J was passable as a host, but the role of host honestly felt superfluous with the rapid pace that the show took.

Girls: Why the second season is kicking ass!

by Peter Foy

Girls season 2 — Credit: http://www.themillions.com/

It seems like every year a show premieres on American televsion that the critical consensus will label as the “Most talked about new show of the year,” or “best freshman season of the year”. This is Girls season 2, a show currently on HBO. In 2012, however, Girls received both of those designations to such a degree, it almost feels like there were no other new shows that came out last year (correct me if I’m wrong). Receiving highly positive reviews, solid ratings, and an almost instantly devoted fan base, Girls arguably was the first show since Mad Men to come off as both niche and accessible right from the start. Despite it’s acclaim, however, the show didn’t escape some rather nasty criticism either. The more polarized responses to the show tended to feel that the characters on the show were unlikable, and poorly constructed. Also, there were some issues on the series four main character all being Caucasian girls, with ethnic groups only being rarely used. For the most part I found these criticisms a little confounding (Sure there was one use of a black actor portraying a homeless guy. big fucking whoop!), but I couldn’t help but feel that a few segments of the show were struggling a bit to find it’s voice. Now, however, as the show is currently four episodes into its second season it already seems primed to silence these detractors.

For the unknowing, Girls is the creation of 26-year old rising indie star Lena Dunham, who acts, writes and directs the series. After achieving some festival success with her debut film Tiny Furniture, Dunham received attention from Judd Apatow, who was looking to produce a new pilot for HBO. Thus Girls was born, a show that acts both as a semi-autobiographical respot for Dunham, as well as generational statement/satire for contemporary 20-somethings. Stepping into her fiction-suit as Hannah, Dunham has addressed issues that come up daily for post-college kids, such as financial issues, sexuality, and the ever looming sense that one’s generation has a unanimous lack of responsibility.

Almost right off the bat, Girls was likened to Sex and the City, as both shows focus on a quartet of sexually adventurous females living in New York City. Granted, I’ve never really watched a full episode of that previous HBO series, but I feel that people were a little too quick to make that comparison. Girls is far too quirky to have a strong resemblance to Sex and the City, nor is it as polished. Girls certainly gives off an indie film vibe, in everything from it’s use of lighting, set design, and props that are literally bought from relatively cheap flea markets located in Brooklyn.

There’s undeniably a charm to how amateurish this young show is in some regards, but the sophomore season (Girls season 2) is definitely showing some vital signs of maturation. In interviews Lena Dunham said that the issues involving the show’s lack of ethnic groups would be addressed this season, and she certainly kept to her word. In the season premiere we find that Hannah is currently dating a black guy (played by Community star Donald Glover), which could of come off as a gimmicky effort to silence naysayers, but instead Dunham writes the character in a really unexpected way. Avoiding any stereotypes, we find out that this new character is actually a republican, which causes an uneasy tension with Hannah’s liberal policies. It climaxes with a brilliant argument between the two characters.

That’s what is really great about this new season of Girls (Girls season 2). Dunham is aware of the show’s complaints and it’s status as being “hipster-esque”, but she’s combating them while at the same time being a bit self-referential in a mocking way.

I’ll reserve my final judgement on Girls sophomore season till it’s completed, but right now it’s safe to say that the series is going to silence many of it’s detractors this season.

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