What About Brian Probably Makes Me Stupid

I promised myself I wouldn't add another post the same night I created this blog but since John has my GRE book and I've been reading Joanna's blogs I figured I'd add another post for shits and giggles.

I'm addicted to Hulu. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I've convinced myself that watching cliche shows and terrible animation online DOES NOT make me a fan. Absolute bollucks of course but hey, what else am I going to do when I've read all the fmls and checked my e-mail three times? Work on my book? Find online sources to continue my GRE studying? I think not.

One night I was looking for the new episode of American Dad (yep, I'm a fan) and discovered to my dismay there wasn't one for that week. At a loss, I clicked on one the Hulu suggested shows, What About Brian, and was a little surprised.

I went into it thinking it'd be the typical group of friends comedy with tiny moments of drama show. It was on ABC which is not known for taking risky ventures and had a cast of attractive white people. Instead, I found a show that not only took the UK approach to launching a new series meaning instead of a show that's already slated for 12 episodes that begin to meander since writers rarely conceive of a series with the WHOLE story mapped out. Rather, they know the characters, the beginning and the end but the journey there gets muddled, it had a 6 episode first season run that was just enough to create engaging characters and an interesting story line. I can go for hours on what's wrong with television writing but I'll save that for another day.

Back to What About Brian. The premise is a group of friends all are in various states of being together, married for thirteen years, married for a few years or together for two. Except Brian. Brian is the friend who is not in a relationship and, when he is, never stays in for long. Now the show could have made a wacky show about the friends (that include Brian's partner in desiging games, his best friend from high school and his sister) trying to hook him constantly with more and more wacky women until Brian meets the woman of his dreams who doesn't work for a nice heart wrenching episode like she's in the military or has cancer or some bullshit.

In the first episode, we're briefly introduced these characters and Brian gets into a fender bender with a woman who becomes known as Car Girl. He's not into the relationship and everyone can see that and razz him that he should break it off but they know he won't which leads to a surprising moment. The girlfriend of his best friend Adam, a pediatrician named Marjorie, pulls him aside to tell him "I know everyone thinks you're just not the relationship guy. But it's not that. You're a romantic and you're waiting for something. But how are you going to find it if you're messing around with these girls you don't care about..." And the sound drops out while the camera focuses in on Brian. Immediate cut to him confessing to his partner Dave that he's in love with Marjorie. "You're not in love with Marjorie, Adam's in love with Marjorie"

Why do I like this? Because they gave NO indication that there was ANYTHING between Brian and Marjorie. It was total left-field. And when Brian realizes he's in love with her, the show doesn't veer into Brian constantly chasing Marjorie or bemoaning that it will never work. It goes the high natural route. Brian and Marjorie deal with it like normal people. When there's the threat that something might happen between them, they get the hell away from each other and the story focuses back on the other characters who are equally interesting... for once. There's the married couple who make a tenuous decision to open their marriage. The married couple, an older woman with a younger man, who are trying to conceive with the age difference causing obvious problems. The couple (that is Adam and Marjorie) gearing up for their split-second engagement. The best part of this show is the last episode of the season wasn't Marjorie standing at the altar and Brian coming to "save" her. It was the two of them arguing witnessed soundlessly through a window by Adam.

It's no Wire but for what it's supposed to be, a show about relationships between some pretty successful people, it's pretty good.

My major complaint however is the second season. After the end of the first season, I was all geared up to see what happened but what I found was, well, novice recent film school graduate writing. "In the first season, Brian was torn up over Marjorie so let's have him make this big speech about second chances and run after Marjorie. Oh Deena and Dave developed major issues over Deena sleeping with someone in their open major, rather than them having an adult conversation about why that wasn't ok let's have Dave sleep with someone else over the course of MONTHS! Now Deena a victim and it's DRAMATIC!" And the theme song they tacked to the opening, Calling All Friends? Are you serious? No wonder the show didn't last past two seasons.

But for the most part, the first season is pretty entertaining.

I apologize for all the grammatical mistakes, I ran out of time and didn't feel like saving this to finish later. I'll edit later if it's necessary.