Help Me Out: Was ABC's Selfie Great? Or Did it Suck?

I just can't seem to decide on this one.

ABC's Selfie definitely poised itself to be a throwaway comedy with no substance, no wit, and a dull cast. The kind of stuff a laugh track can save. But Selfie doesn't have a laugh track. No, Selfie puts itself in the fray, into direct combat with handfuls of single-camera network comedies, and it actually holds its own. It gives me good laughs in every episode. But it still gives me some pretty decent eye rolls as well.

So which is it? Was Selfie a new, inventive comedy with a refreshing perspective? Or was it a trite, overblown drag playing poorly off our society's growing attachment to social media? I'd like to look to the show's star first, to perpetuate my uncertainty. Eliza Dooley (played by the lovely Karen Gillan) is a ditzy, seemingly brainless beauty with absolutely no social skills nor any level of thoughtfulness whatsoever. In one of the starkest cases of this anomaly, she finds herself genuinely incapable of asking a coworker "How are you?". Shut up Eliza. You suck. You're not a fool. You can speak to people normally. It's as if the writers wanted to put most of Selfie's characters' at extremes: the sassy black receptionist, the cold-blooded, hard-ass businesswoman, the awkward, unhappy analyst; the problem is, these folks just aren't likable. Okay, Charmonique is likable. Joan is fun too. But we've got a character problem here. And then we have John Cho's character, Henry, who is sort of the Jim Halpert of the cast, a dose of normalcy within the throes of strangeness. Although he may be more comparable to Parks & Rec's Ben Wyatt, since he has moments of oddity himself. At any rate, there is something strange about the characters--reminiscent of NBC's Outsourced, which featured all kinds of likable characters who just didn't mesh.



That isn't to say that Eliza and Henry don't have a good TV relationship. It was entertaining, there was significant character development in each episode, and their conflicting opinions lead to some entertaining arguments (and sometimes even hi-jinks!). All I'm saying is that the show doesn't have an perfect cast.

But let's look at the way the show presents itself: lighthearted, smiley, and super chill. First off, that's totally my style. I love that. The aspect of the show that caught me totally off guard was its blatant satire of society's social integration. The show puts the viewer in Eliza's perspective, for the most part, and somehow, that works very well for it. When I'm watching the show, I'm thinking like Eliza.

So what does all this mean? To me, the series is just a delight. I wanted to hate it so badly, but it won me over. I'm not blind, though: I know the show kinda sucked every once in awhile. It was just a lot easier to like than I thought. 7/10.

Selfie was canceled by ABC on November 7th. Although it was charming, it was clearly not charming enough. What do you think? Did ABC make the right call? Did its mediocrity outweigh its charm?