Pilot Thoughts: GCB

I've been quite remiss about my weekly TV reports lately. I'll probably do a quick catch up post tonight, but if I don't get to I at least wanted to get my thoughts down on last week's GCB's pilot episode.

A couple of weeks ago I said that Good Christian Bitches Good Christian Belles GCB looked to be a mash-up of Suburgatory, Hart of Dixie and Desperate Housewives and after seeing the pilot I discovered that in all of its soapy campy glory I was pretty spot on. Like the first two shows, the main character, here played by Leslie Bibb, is forced to move into a world unlike what they've been used to (the classic fish out of water trope). In GCB, however, she is moving back to a place she knows all too well, the rich Dallas neighborhood where she grew up. Cue the stereotypes--big hair, big guns, big gossip, big churches--which all get their proper treatment in the pilot lest you forget. The Desperate Housewives element of the show come from the dishy ladies that make up the ensemble. From Annie Potts as Bibb's mother to Kristin Chenoweth as the ringleader to the neighborhood women hellbent on making Bibb's character life as hellish as she made their lives in high school.

Now it's a good time to say that I "liked" the pilot. Was it over-the-top and completely ridiculous at times? YES. But I like the fact that the show is completely aware of this. I mean you don't make the first scene of your show a man driving off a cliff because he was getting a blowjob and not be at least somewhat self-aware of your silliness. Did many of the characters seem too one-dimensional (a few of the ladies) or even completely dull (most of the male characters)? ABSOLUTELY. But there's only so much a pilot can do and I will be the first to dump the show if it doesn't make some of these characters as rounded as Pott's character was. But for now, I had fun with it. The next couple of episodes will be key. I'll give it the same latitude I gave Pan Am which had a bit more going for it initially than anyone remembers now. B-/C+