If you saw any ads or trailers for “Selfie,” you were probably expecting that everyone would give it this year’s award for the stupidest show on television. The funny thing about this twenty–two minute, single–camera sitcom (besides the decent humor) is that it is both idiotic and incredibly smart at the same time.
Eliza Dooley has some issues. Mainly, she’s “butt” (as in “butt ugly”) on the inside. Shallow, vain, entitled, self–involved, promiscuous: the list goes on and on. She’s basically everything that adults say is wrong with “kids these days.” And, of course, she’s insta–famous and obsessed with her social media followers and friends. She has a lot of really deep and meaningful realizations that totally resonate with her twenty–first century audience about how she might have a lot of followers, but she does not actually have any friends who care about her. No one but Siri will bring her ginger ale when she’s sick. Luckily, a really arrogant guy she works with named Henry is willing to “rebrand” her.
Eliza? Henry? Do these names sound familiar? Karen Gillan is no Audrey Hepburn (well, no one but Audrey can even compete with Audrey), and Eliza Dooley’s problems have nothing to do with her poverty or cockney English, but yes, the show is supposed to be a modern day adaptation of “My Fair Lady.” With that in mind, the show is actually really interesting, but probably knowing that this show exists is interesting enough.
While the pilot for “Selfie” was better than my rock–bottom low expectations for it, there are way too many other shows for this one to make your fall “to–watch” list. While I have to admit it made me laugh at points, I was only laughing at the characters. The show fell flat when it tried to have dramatic or at all serious moments because you were no longer invited to make fun of the characters. Maybe this would be a good show to watch ironically, but you'd probably have better luck with the “Real Housewives.”
Check out our other pilot recaps for "How to Get Away with Murder," "Gotham" and "Red Band Society."
