Don’t Trust the B—— in Apartment 23 could be the twin sister of Broad City. They both feature two women in New York, one desperately looking for real work, the other trying their best to avoid it. One is the more sensible yet barely keeping it together, the other is a freakish sexpot druggie. They alternate between barely making their rent, and living lavish epicurean lifestyles. They even have a collection of friends who fall into similar bit roles and sometimes even share the same actors. And yet B—— is also a very different flavour of the same thing.
In terms of concept, B—— is a kind of stealth parody of Audrey Hepburn’s Ms. Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Whereas that film puts an idealistic spin on a cynical world of gold diggers and male prostitutes, this shows the unseen side of it, along with the alcohol abuse, compulsive dishonesty and ruthlessness that Golightly almost certainly got up to when she wasn’t softly singing lullabies about rivers. If the comparison wasn’t explicit enough, the show also chose to include an angry Asian tenant down the hall, who secretly lechers for her glamorous neighbour (thankfully played by an actual Asian actress, this time around). The parody provides a lot of fuel for humour, especially from the eponymous B—— being put up against an honest, decent, bakery loving roommate who, neither a man nor a millionaire, is subjected to the unrestrained monstrosity of it all. Perhaps the best concept though is James Van Der Beek, playing himself as a vain and stupid, struggling former-child actor. As the series progress, he gets more and more of the limelight, serving as a good B-plot to whatever issue of the day the two roommates feuding over.
In terms of writing, I’d say B—— is a smarter comedy than ‘’Broad City’’. Whereas the latter sometimes goes for the easy or lazy jokes, B—— has designed its characters cleverly enough to enable more off-beat and surprising jokes and situations. Whereas Broad has untameable figure skiving off of work to smoke pot, B—— has an untameable figure who impersonates a magazine’s CEO for the week, and then smokes pot in her office. As comedies, B—— is the more reliably funny, more seasoned older sister.
Simple Idea with a Surprising Amount of Meat
Don’t Trust the B—— in Apartment 23 could be the twin sister of Broad City. They both feature two women in New York, one desperately looking for real work, the other trying their best to avoid it. One is the more sensible yet barely keeping it together, the other is a freakish sexpot druggie. They alternate between barely making their rent, and living lavish epicurean lifestyles. They even have a collection of friends who fall into similar bit roles and sometimes even share the same actors. And yet B—— is also a very different flavour of the same thing.
In terms of concept, B—— is a kind of stealth parody of Audrey Hepburn’s Ms. Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Whereas that film puts an idealistic spin on a cynical world of gold diggers and male prostitutes, this shows the unseen side of it, along with the alcohol abuse, compulsive dishonesty and ruthlessness that Golightly almost certainly got up to when she wasn’t softly singing lullabies about rivers. If the comparison wasn’t explicit enough, the show also chose to include an angry Asian tenant down the hall, who secretly lechers for her glamorous neighbour (thankfully played by an actual Asian actress, this time around). The parody provides a lot of fuel for humour, especially from the eponymous B—— being put up against an honest, decent, bakery loving roommate who, neither a man nor a millionaire, is subjected to the unrestrained monstrosity of it all. Perhaps the best concept though is James Van Der Beek, playing himself as a vain and stupid, struggling former-child actor. As the series progress, he gets more and more of the limelight, serving as a good B-plot to whatever issue of the day the two roommates feuding over.
In terms of writing, I’d say B—— is a smarter comedy than ‘’Broad City’’. Whereas the latter sometimes goes for the easy or lazy jokes, B—— has designed its characters cleverly enough to enable more off-beat and surprising jokes and situations. Whereas Broad has untameable figure skiving off of work to smoke pot, B—— has an untameable figure who impersonates a magazine’s CEO for the week, and then smokes pot in her office. As comedies, B—— is the more reliably funny, more seasoned older sister.