Fall TV Preview: Can ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ replicate ‘Jane the Virgin’s’ success?
For some time now, The CW has been working at least to a certain extent to make you laugh. They submitted “Hart of Dixie” as a comedy for a while at the Primetime Emmy Awards, and they have since also done so with “Jane the Virgin.” Is “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” set to be the next big thing? It is a show that has underwent quite a transformation. It started as a show that was pitched to Showtime as a half-hour comedy with musical components, but it has instead landed here as an hour-long series.
In this edition of our Fall TV Preview series, we’re going to go through some of what the show has going both for it and against it … at least for now.
What works – The show combines a little bit of the fish-out-of-water story of “Hart of Dixie” with some of the humor of “Jane the Virgin,” and it is one of the few things that The CW has on the air that genuinely relies heavily on humor. We’re not sure that there is anything else like it on TV, and we know that some executives are really high on the potential here. Tonally, it seems like the perfect fit for a night that also includes the Gina Rodriguez hit.
What doesn’t – While Rachel Bloom can certainly sing, we’re not sold on there being many more musical numbers than what we have in the trailer. We’re mostly concerned there that there is only so much humor that can be mined from a central premise of a woman completely obsessed with a guy she dated years ago at summer camp. It almost feels more like a plot for a movie than it does a TV show that is running for at least 13 episodes.
Oh, and West Covina is not two hours from the beach. Slight exaggeration on the part of the show there. You can really get to any beach in the LA area (and most in Orange County) within an hour if you know when to go.
Final take – This seems a little hokey and a candidate for an early cancellation, but at the same time, we thought the same thing at first about “Jane the Virgin.” There is potential for this to be really funny, and what it needs most of all is to be given a chance. We will do that, and hope others will, as well.