HBO’s Premiere of ‘Girls’

Not that my Sunday nights aren’t already full enough from womanizing Mad Men, medieval slayings in Game of Thrones, and twisting and turning in The Killing, but now HBO dropped a dramedy about Girls. Think Sex and the City, but without all the glamor. We have a group of girls, led by Lena Dunham, who live in New York City. Sounds familiar? Well it is, sort of, but it also isn’t.

Hannah (Dunham) is cut off by her parents who have been providing for her financially her entire life. She is a few years out of college and has been interning for the past year without pay. She claims to be working on her memoir that she believes will be a top-seller. Her mother is strict and tells her enough is enough. Her father wants to keep on babying his only child, but it’s clear who wears the pants in that marriage.

Hannah’s best friend is Marnie (Allison Williams), the only traditionally sexy actress in the main cast. She’s unhappy with her boyfriend and is even less happy when her so-called friends show up late to a dinner party, leaving her with her boyfriend’s obnoxious buddies. Jessa has returned to the City and moved in with her cousin Shoshanna. We don’t know much about Shoshanna from the pilot, but Jessa is a free-spirited hippie. Frankly, she got on my nerves quite a bit during the half-hour premiere.

What we had in the premiere was a premise of four very different kind of girls in the tremendously fast-moving New York City, which might not be the best fit for some of them. Girls is a dramedy that hits very close to home for those plenty who are probably in the same situation during these difficult times. But do we want to watch something that is so familiar and painful to watch because it feels so real? Or do we prefer a show like Sex and the City or Friends that make living in the city look easy and fun?

While I liked the pilot for Girls, I’m just unsure on how successful this series is going to be, and therefore I’m slightly distancing myself from the series because I cannot deal with another loss like Luck. Girls has the potential of being very awkwardly funny and also being brutally honest, something rare on television even today. But I feel the show is lacking a true identity. If you say “A group of friends living in NYC” you might think of Seinfeld, Friends, or How I Met Your Mother. More specifically, a group of girls in NYC, you’ll think of Sex and the City. Where does Girls fit in aside from its characters having double initials: Hannah Horvath, Marnie Michaels, Jessa Johansson, and Shoshanna Shapiro. Unless Dunham is a big Stan Lee fan?

Anyway, I recommend the show but again, don’t become too attached.