Hepburn Wannabe

Selfie

George Bernard Shaw produced a stage play in 1912 called Pygmalion. The play is about a professor that makes a bet with an army colonel that he can turn a crass flower merchant woman into a proper member of high society. Almost a half a century later, Shaw’s play was adapted into one of Hollywood’s most notable musicals, My Fair Lady. Skip ahead another 50 or so years and ABC has developed Shaw’s play into a half hour comedy for the modern age called Selfie.

With websites and cell phone applications, “friends” are just a click away. Eliza Dooley (Karen Gillan Guardians of the Galaxy) has 263,000 “friends”. But when faced with a personal dilemma, those so-called friends are called upon for help, though to no prevail. After a little soul searching, Eliza decides to change her image and so enlists (very reluctantly) the help of a co-worker named Henry (John Cho Star Trek) who changes things like that for a living. What they both discover is that changing Eliza’s image may be a lot more work that either anticipated.

Was this an amazing half hour of television? No, no it was not.  Was it a cute and relaxing half hour? Yes, yes it was. Like A to Z on NBC, Selfie is looking to be a break for all the serialized drama and violence that is becoming prominent on TV nowadays. Gillan and Cho do a great job of making the show relaxing and fun as well. Gillan shines as the narcissistic pharmaceutical sales rep. While Cho, stuffy and anti-social, does a great job as her opposite. These two leads seem to have awesome chemistry already and because of that it will be fun to see these two play off of each other. My only real concern for the sitcom is how long can they play Eliza being self-absorbed before it gets old and stale? I just don’t see the show having the staying power of sitcoms like Friends, Seinfeld, or even How I Met Your Mother.

Selfie is definitely for those of you out there that need a break in between all of the depressing/violent shows out there. And hey…if not a break, then maybe just to pick up some pointers to be better people to one another.

The Verdict: Worth Your Time.