
Last week, I watched Don’t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23 on ABC (Wed., 9:30 pm ET, following Modern Family). You may think, “Oh, what an intriguing show,” but think again. The show is mean spirited, relies on too many tired gags, and is basically trying too hard.
Listen, I’m not a cynic. I always give new shows a try before I judge them, like New Girl or 2 Broke Girls or even Up All Night. Can you guess which of those three I like? Keep reading, and I’ll tell you at the end of this review.
Don’t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23 is so cliche that it borrows a gag from Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, but instead of Neil Patrick Harris, we get James Van Der Beek, who’s playing himself … sort of … In real life, he’s the married father of two kids and is unlike the playboy he plays on the show.
For people who don’t know Mr. Van Der Beek, he started on a little show called [amazon_link id=”B00008AOX3″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Dawson’s Creek[/amazon_link] where he played an aspiring filmmaker with big dreams. The show also made stars of Joshua Jackson (Fringe), Katie Holmes (Mrs. Tom Cruise) and Oscar nominee Michelle Williams (Heath Ledger’s ex). Van Der Beek is the only one from the show who went nowhere until the door to Apartment 23 opened up for him.
You may know the actresses in Apartment 23 — Krysten Ritter (no relation to the late John Ritter) and Dreama Walker. Ritter, whom you may have seen on Veronica Mars, Breaking Bad and Gilmore Girls, stars as Chloe, a con artist and b**** who will do anything and anyone to get her way.
In the pilot episode, Chloe is looking for a roommate to pay for half of her apartment. Enter June (Dreama Walker), a recent college grad in Economics who moves from Indiana to New York, much to her parents’ dismay. First day in the big city, she learns that her soon-to-be boss has embezzled billions of dollars, forcing the company into bankruptcy.
Mind you, she’s already put down a deposit on a luxury penthouse suite and guess what? Everything seems to spiral downward for this poor girl, including the fact that a previous tenant was a murderer who stalked his victims in the building.
Her only means of survival is the b**** (that would be Chloe) in Apartment 23. And everything is hunky dory until June learns that Chloe not only used her security deposit to buy jewelry, but also walks around naked in the apartment and hits on June’s boyfriend.
June gets revenge by selling all of Chloe’s stuff, but has to backtrack and find the ottoman that Chloe’s grandmother left to her. Except the only thing Chloe cares about is finding the Japanese energy pills she stored in the ottoman.
There isn’t much to go on here. Don’t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23 is a one-joke premise that’s going to die a speedy death. Sorry, B****, there are better shows on television.
And those two shows I like? New Girl and 2 Broke Girls.
Any thoughts on Don’t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23? Interesting premise or just another show with a clunky name and people behaving badly?
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