TV Review: Selfie

by Annie

I didn't have high hopes for Selfie - Karen Gillian was the only reason I watched it at all. 

It is a new comedy on ABC staring Karen Gillian as a self-obsessed, social media dependent, pharmaceutical sales rep. After totally embarrassing herself, and realizing that she is a big joke, she turns to John Cho's character, Henry, for help. Henry is a marketing guru whose specialty is giving products a new positive image. 

Sound familiar? Yep. It's Pygmalion, or My Fair Lady or whatever spinoff you want to compare it to. Her name is Eliza Dooley for crying out loud, they almost gave her the exact same name! And the man who “remakes” Eliza? Henry! There is even a scene where Henry is teaching her to not slurp tea and they are drinking from a tea set, it's been a while but I'm pretty sure this exactly happens in Pygmalion or in My Fair Lady. 

Selfie is basically Pygmalion with smart phones and hash-tags. 

I want to make sure you know Karen Gillian's character bares no resemblance to Amelia Pond. Amelia Pond would eat Eliza Dooley for breakfast, get back on the Tardis and then have Rory clean up the mess. 

This character is vapid, shallow and weak. Her only redeeming quality is that she realizes she is terrible and wants to change. Her character is billed as a “twenty-something” but some of the things she says are just too young for her, like saying #thestruggle or saying LOL. Those would be things an early 20s would say not a “20 something” who is old enough, and successful enough, to have her own apartment and own luxury items like Louboutins. Karen's performance of Eliza is great, she is totally believable as this girl. Despite that the character is just not very likable - I blame the writers.

I think this idea would have been better suited for a movie. 

The concept of remaking someone into socially acceptable person has a short time line. Seeing her backslide and revert back to her selfish, insensitive, former self is going to get tedious fast and if she just becomes a decent human being - there is no more show. 
I also just didn't find this show funny, it had amusing scenes but I don't think I actually laughed out loud even once. 

Final verdict: I will not being watching this show. 
If it gets canceled I will not get “feels.” #meh