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did you like bodie after the first episode? how about prez? carver?

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Bodie, yes. Prez and Carver, no.

This show feels very authentic. I can easily imagine many people in New York City living the same way. In that sense I liked the show.

Ultimately I have a hard time respecting people who live like that. Even though the show isn't celebrating their lifestayle, it will be hard for me to overcome. I am too predisposed to disliking this particulary personality type. They have accomplished nothing, they have produced nothing and yet still maintain a very high opinion of themselves.

The characters on the Wire, for instance, were mostly trying to better themselves. Many of them did very bad things to do so, but they were trying. The characters on Girls are just wollowing in a pit of mediocrity.

again, could you have said that after one episode of the wire?

was stringer trying to better himself? avon? most of the cops?

we have no idea where the show's going. they've set up the characters as they are at a given moment. does that mean they'll just continue to be that way? maybe, but I'd say hannah's parents cutting her off is going to force her to grow up and start being more independent.

don't get me wrong, I didn't necessarily "like" the characters in the show, but they were interesting.

we've also seen plenty of male characters that are "losers" who basically are worthless (think of any number of judd apatow comedies). I don't see the difference.

[This message has been edited by Doug Christie (edited 4/17/2012 1:23p).]

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Ultimately I have a hard time respecting people who live like that. Even though the show isn't celebrating their lifestayle, it will be hard for me to overcome. I am too predisposed to disliking this particulary personality type. They have accomplished nothing, they have produced nothing and yet still maintain a very high opinion of themselves.

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In my opinion the most important thing for a pilot is to establish the setting. The characters will change a lot and develop throughout even a single series. I thought it was "refreshing".

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was stringer trying to better himself? avon? most of the cops?

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Well, you could say that all of these characters were trying to better themselves after one episode. In their own ways, they were either trying to increase their wealth and power (String and Avon), or break up a large drug trafficking ring, which would help their respective careers (the cops). That was made pretty clear in the pilot.

right, but you're assuming that the characters on girls are not going to try to change or better themselves. why do you assume this? just because they're introduced as being in this state does not mean they will continue to be in this state. and if they did, then I absolutely agree that the show will have failed and will not be interesting.

ahhh...white guilt.

Black drug dealers employing kids to push drugs to other kids in Baltimore = trying to better themselves.

white girl working unpaid internship while trying to get her writing noticed = wallowing in mediocrity.

[This message has been edited by Diggity (edited 4/17/2012 5:54p).]

^

Diggity with a KO

Call it white guilt if you want but I still feel for characters like wallace, d, and bodie more than hannah and her spoiled friends

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there's just no reason to like any of the main characters of Girls. they're all completely delusional

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One of the quotes I read about the show was that their delusion is the narrative of the story. Obviously the point of the show is going to be watching them come to grips with that, as it's just now going to set in. She's just had the rug yanked out from under her. I just think it's interesting to say that they can't be likable because they are delusional. If you're anywhere near your early 20s, most of your friends are probably delusional. That doesn't mean there's no reason to root for them.

The success in the show is going to lie in the writing. How well can she take a simple premise and keep in fresh and authentic.

Doug & Haverford - thanks for aiding in being the voice of reason here. It's like people can't seem to separate rooting for these characters vs rooting for the real-life versions they represent. The whole point of drama is to watch a character change. It's called a "character arc," and is the foundation of pretty much every story ever told. A character starts out with a certain set of flaws, and by the end of the story - which also coincides with the end of their arc - said flaws are hopefully remedied.

I just can't understand the "I don't like this show because the women portrayed are horrible and spoiled" argument. Again, if you just straight up don't like the show, that's totally fine. But not liking the show because you disagree with the characters portrayed is just as ridiculous as not liking Jurassic Park because Alan Grant hates children. His dislike of children is presented as a character flaw that is corrected by the end of the story via his time spent with Hammond's grandchildren. No different than I'm sure Hannah's character in Girls will come to certain realizations about herself for the better; realizations that will help her grow into a more mature, less entitled person as she lives a life cut-off from her parents.

If anything, how was something like Entourage any different? How does that show get a pass and this one doesn't? Those asshats were ten times more spoiled and entitled than the characters in Girls, but because that's what's expected of them, it's okay to "like" them and the show?

[This message has been edited by TCTTS (edited 4/17/2012 9:11p).]

I really just think there are 2 things at work: 1) It's a female centered show (written by and starring mostly females, and girls "just aren't funny") and this is a website where your average audience is dudes living in the South and 2) Critics across the board praised it heavily, which sometimes makes people forget that they aren't always in tune with people who are paid to think and write about TV (emphasis on the "think about") and assume it must be good. They are then letdown by the "hype", even though they failed to realize WHY it was that critics praised it and those reasons meant it wasn't going to be up their alley in the first place. But they also need to come up with reasons why, so they aren't called stupid.

I can count on one hand the number of characters in TV I've found to be "relatable". A lack of relatability is an incredibly weird knock on a TV show.

[This message has been edited by TomHaverford (edited 4/17/2012 9:27p).]

You're probably right, Haverford. All of those points definitely seem to lead to a lot of these reactions.

Either way, from a purely screenwriting perspective, and contrary to certain opinions, Girls *is* a well-written show (the pilot is, at least) and I'm at a loss as to how some people couldn't have laughed at least a couple of times. Hannah's "boyfriend"? Really, that character wasn't funny? And I don't mean a funny person, but how could some people think he wasn't portrayed comically? He's such a clueless doofus that I couldn't help but laugh. And that chick who said, "I'm just not in to eating this week." I know people exactly like that and it was funny because they were making fun of that type of person, not endorsing her. I just feel like some of the irony may have been lost on those of you who may not have liked the show for the reasons stated...

[This message has been edited by TCTTS (edited 4/18/2012 12:14a).]

I thought Hannah's "squeeze"(dunno I'd call him a boyfriend) was perfectly written. Yup, he's a doofus, but he's quick to be sarcastic and avoid every serious topic of conversation(something that is very easy to relate to in relationships where one person is way more involved than the other). Thought that was very humorous and clever. I also think it's not my average show, as a younger guy I'm watching a show about chicks, written by chicks...but I still was able to enjoy it, because it was real, not some bull**** that I wouldn't even watch with earplugs in like Sex and the City.

[This message has been edited by Bunk Moreland (edited 4/17/2012 10:13p).]

What Entourage were you watching?

Eric was a super hard working guy that started his own management company.

Turtle was always hustling starting different businesses and found success.

Vince and his brother were both actors but they both worked hard.

None of them came from money and none of them got any support from their parents financially. In the beginning they are living off Vince to an extent but they also are helping him in his career and life, none of them wants to be a career leach though.

None of them spent much time feeling sorry for themselves or waiting for someone else to bail them out. I just don't get your comparison.

like i said, i'll watch again next week just because it was just a pilot. i think the biggest issue is that my two big shows lately have been The Wire and Game of Thrones, two incredibly well-written and engrossing dramas, so i'm tending to judge everything else by comparison to them. which is of course not fair to GIRLS at all, a show that's nothing like either of those sprawling tales.

unicyclist I'm watching Wire all the way through for the 2nd time in my life and have 2 eps left, and while I agree with what you are saying, I just think you need to give it time. It can easily end up being a flop, but it could also be worth it. On Wire threads on this board there are people who after 6 eps in S1 still can't see the genius of the writing, and a bunch of us constantly defend it. Watching these shows these days, if it has critical buzz, and I can get through the pilot, I always give it a few eps to get going, as I'll unfairly judge it if I don't.

This is how I feel about GIRLS so far. But yeah, I agree, the epics that HBO has shown lately like GoT or Boardwalk obviously have much easier pilots to be attracted to. I'd compare this to Bored to Death...something that I'll need to watch for a while and hope(like BtD) that I'll end up really enjoying.

[This message has been edited by Bunk Moreland (edited 4/17/2012 10:40p).]

oh maybed i misspoke, i wasn't saying that the wire wasn't drawing me in. it took me maybe 2 or 3 episodes to fall in love with that show, i just finished season 2 over the weekend (first time watching the series) and the ending of that season, depressing as it was, pushed the show into my top 5 of all time

sorry </offtopic>

Bunk - Spot-on assessment of Hannah's "squeeze."

aggie93 - re: Entourage, you make a good point, but even still, I'd argue that none of those guys were that way in the beginning. They were all basically leeching off Vince's fame, and it wasn't until the show really got going that they legitimately started trying to do their own things. In the beginning, they were all just as entitled and as obnoxious as some are claiming the Girls crew to be. Point being, if the Entourage guys can "change," then so can the Girls girls. Though, by series' end, I'd still argue that each one of those guys - save for maybe Eric - were just as spoiled and entitled as they were in the beginning, relatively speaking. Maybe not blatantly or obnoxiously so, but watching Turtle get saved financially by his millionaire best friend in the final episode of the series didn't do much to show a real progression or make me sympathize with his "plight" prior to that point. It was basically like, "Oh no, Marc freakin' Cuban isn't going to back my company anymore. Now I have to go back to only being the best friend of and living with one of the biggest movie stars in the world." I just never felt sympathy for those guys in any of those situations, because their idea of "failing" was still far beyond most people's version of success. Like Drama not getting on some show, but still being pretty well-off and at least on the C-list, etc. Or Eric whining about Sloan, who was ridiculously out of his league to begin with. Overall, I just think the Girls pilot was written better and with more nuance than any episode of Entourage, which never had any true sense of real-world stakes or failure as most people experience those things. Being cut-off from your parents and having to go it on your own is much more relatable and frightening than being forced to live in a sick penthouse at an amazing hotel because you had to move out of your Beverly Hills mansion.

[This message has been edited by TCTTS (edited 4/18/2012 1:01a).]

I enjoyed the pilot, but I already can't stand the british friend, Jess I think her name is. That type of person drives me up the wall, and I want to just tell her how full of **** she is.
To me, that means that part was written/acted well. Just like I really enjoy anytime Joffrey is slapped. That kid does a great job.

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What Entourage were you watching?

Eric was a super hard working guy that started his own management company.

Turtle was always hustling starting different businesses and found success.

Vince and his brother were both actors but they both worked hard.

None of them came from money and none of them got any support from their parents financially. In the beginning they are living off Vince to an extent but they also are helping him in his career and life, none of them wants to be a career leach though.

None of them spent much time feeling sorry for themselves or waiting for someone else to bail them out. I just don't get your comparison.

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This is a joke right? Please go watch it again. These guys lived it up off Vince and used him at almost every opportunity through most of the show- especially at the start. He wasn't talented and got where he was on a pretty face, and destroyed his career multiple times. E, Turtle, and Johnny spent a good deal of time moping around feeling sorry for themselves. The show was great escapist entertainment, but a tale of hard working guys who got by on only that it is not. Their parents may not have helped them, but they all made it in Vince's pretty face, not "hard work".

You guys are all over the place with the scaling of this show. I'm seeing it being compared with probably the most brilliantly developed and written show in the last decade or so (The Wire) as well as easily the laziest 'blockbuster' TV show in my opinion (Entourage).

As far as my thoughts on it, I'll try to be fair. I wasn't that impressed with the 1st episode on its own. Realistically, I probably wouldn't have stuck with it past 10 minutes or so if it weren't for the big time promotion it has received HBO, the critics, and my own wife over the last month of so. It's first offerring didn't live up to the hype in a vacuum. But it did somehow hook me in to want to see more and I'm pretty confident the series itself will deliver.

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You guys are all over the place with the scaling of this show.

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yeah that's probably my fault for inexplicably comparing the two shows' characters when they couldn't be more different, my bad.

Not quite sure what to think about the show. Didn't love it. Didn't quite hate it. I'll stick around for a few weeks to see how it goes.

While living off your parents for 2 years after college is bad, her parents were wrong to cut her off in that fashion. Give her a deadline of a month or 2.

I thought the girl trying to negotiate a paycheck out of her unpaid internship was painfully funny.
I laughed when she asked about the book she was writing and the boss responded with, "but you won't be here to read it".

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While living off your parents for 2 years after college is bad, her parents were wrong to cut her off in that fashion.

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Agreed. That seemed a little too harsh/illogical. Give her a deadline of a month or so to secure a job, then cut her off. Especially if she can only truly afford to eat/live in NY for the next seven days or whatever.

Yes but her response of "I only need you to give me money for 2 years so I can write my book" and then immediately going hostile to them as soon as they questioned this "plan" was unimpressive.

I honestly think this is hard to compare to Entourage for a number of reasons beyond the characters being so different. Entourage was a lot more of an escapist show that isn't meant to be real, "Girls" is all about realism. Still, the guys in Entourage seemed to have some level of ambition. They "hit the jackpot" with Vince but they seemed to have some thoughts of what they wanted to do and they had some self esteem. The main character in "Girls" looks like she would be perfectly happy just to live off her parents the rest of her life and complain about how hard her life is.

I'll give it another show or two but I went in with low expectations after the preview and they came up short of them so far. Doesn't mean it isn't a good show or appeals to others but so far I would rather watch a GoT episode I have seen 4 times already over it.

Enjoyed it but I just came back to post that Diggity has a strong contender for POTY with that KO.

we'll see...

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I really just think there are 2 things at work: 1) It's a female centered show (written by and starring mostly females, and girls "just aren't funny") and this is a website where your average audience is dudes living in the South and 2) Critics across the board praised it heavily, which sometimes makes people forget that they aren't always in tune with people who are paid to think and write about TV (emphasis on the "think about") and assume it must be good. They are then letdown by the "hype", even though they failed to realize WHY it was that critics praised it and those reasons meant it wasn't going to be up their alley in the first place. But they also need to come up with reasons why, so they aren't called stupid.

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spot on.

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Agreed. That seemed a little too harsh/illogical. Give her a deadline of a month or so to secure a job, then cut her off. Especially if she can only truly afford to eat/live in NY for the next seven days or whatever.

Yes but her response of "I only need you to give me money for 2 years so I can write my book" and then immediately going hostile to them as soon as they questioned this "plan" was unimpressive.

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This was my main issue with the first episode. It just seemed illogical and over-the-top to establish the situation, which was further emphasized by the cartoon-like parents with softy earring-wearing dad and "I want my lake house" fit throwing mom. If you don't make the situation realistic enough for me to buy it, then I'm going to have trouble buying into the characters overall.

I hesitate to even mention The Wire, but since the comparision is already out there, it has nothing to do with how irritating the characters were. It has everything to do with the fact I bought the realism of the story and the situations they were in. It was genuine all the way to the last season when McNulty started faking the serial killer, at which point I thought less of the show. This pilot seemed to sacrifice being genuine in order to fast-track the story along. I'm going to keep giving it a shot, and I'm fine with characters being irritating as long as I buy them and the situations they're in as being somewhat genuine. If it's not going to be at least somewhat realistic, then it needs to get a helluva lot funnier. For me, the pilot sort of landed in "no man's land" between the two.

[This message has been edited by DannyDuberstein (edited 4/18/2012 3:13p).]

I didn't think the parents were written badly at all. Maybe they were a little over the top, but it's a comedy for crying out loud. I could totally see a couple professors from some small liberal arts college treating their kid like a case study of sorts.

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I didn't think the parents were written badly at all. Maybe they were a little over the top, but it's a comedy for crying out loud. I could totally see a couple professors from some small liberal arts college treating their kid like a case study of sorts.

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Yeah, from a comedic/screenwriting perspective, I totally get it. If they cut her off immediately, the stakes are higher which equals more drama/comedic potential. Had they said she has a month to find a job, then they're cutting her off, I don't think there'd be as much of a sense of urgency. Plus, I absolutely loved the touch there at the end where Hannah takes the roomservice tip money as well. It just helped to show how dire her situation is - or, rather, how dire she thinks her situation is.

"I want my lake house!" was my favorite line of the ep, particularly in light of a lot of recent articles I've seen about the boomers "mortgaged" this generation's future and leaving us with the bill.

I also don't think if's unreasonable to assume that this isn't the first she's heard if being cut off. You know, "they keep saying they're gonna cut me off, but they won't actually do it.". Maybe the big shock was that they actually did it this time, more so than it coming from nowhere. My sister in law is not too far off from being that type of case.

[This message has been edited by TomHaverford (edited 4/18/2012 4:24p).]