2 Broke Girls The Complete First Season   Starring: Kat Dennings, Beth Behrs, Garrett Morris, Jonathan Kite, Matthew Moy and Jennifer Coolidge Warner Home Video RRP: £24.99 1000330567 Certificate: 15 Available 22 October 2012

When Max Black’s fellow waitress is fired for shagging in the back of the diner, she desperately tries to get the owner not to hire any more help, but the deed is already done introducing her to Caroline Channing. The two could not be more different, Max is a brash, straight talking woman, with a side-line in profanity, whereas Caroline is a newly bankrupt millionaires. When Max discovers that Caroline has nowhere to live she invites her to share her apartment, little realising that Caroline would bring her horse...

2 Broke Girls: The Complete First Season (2011) is an American situation comedy, created by Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City) and Whitney Cummings for CBS. The first season has been released on a three disc DVD set. The set contains all twenty-four episodes of season one, with the set's only two extras on the third disc. There is a short documentary, 2 Girls Going for Broke (13 min, 30 sec) with cast and crew talking about the show, which is, apparently aimed at an audience in their twenties. Alternate Jokes (5 min, 57 sec) has different versions of a couple of scenes. You get options for an English or Spanish audio track with subs in six languages.

Ok, straight off the bat, I have to do my usual, comedy is "very much a matter of personal choice, yadda, yadda, yadda", which is my backhanded way of saying that, although the show is successful, has won a couple of awards and is in its second season, that I just don’t get it.

The idea of the show is nothing new and the dynamic of juxtaposing two characters from wildly differing backgrounds had been explored more successfully in The Odd Couple (1970-1975) and in an oblique way, in Frasier (1993-2004). But the humour that existed between the characters relied on a high level of wit in the script which created interesting word play. What 2 Broke Girls has is double entendre of a level found in most school yards and the odd smattering of sexual profanity, not enough to sustain its half an hour.

The two central characters Max (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Beth Behrs), do what they can with the script and their characters as they have been defined, but the script allows little of depth to be explored. If you think the idea of horse poop is the height of comedic genius then you will probably like this show. It reminds me very much of another show I endured, Eastbound & Down (2009 - present), which was another popular study in banality.

Perhaps this is the way that popular American comedy is heading, laughing at the working class instead of laughing with them as they used to do with Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2006) and Rosanne (1988-1997). I would be surprised if 2 Broke Girls enjoyed either such critical acclaim or longevity. There are a number of very excellent comedies being made in the States, but for me, this isn’t one of them,

The show does gain some improvement and the girls do start to grow on you as the season progresses; hopefully this will continue into season two as Max and Caroline strive to save enough for their own cupcake empire.

6

Charles Packer