Anyone watching this? It got a lot of hype and I have to say I’m not too impressed with Lena Dunham’s character, her acting, or her story line.
But the three other girls are cracking me the hell up. I love those characters and their performances, especially Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna, the wide-eyed innocent. I can’t believe she’s David Mamet’s daughter. She’s fantastic.
Allison Williams as Mamie the uptight one is my second favorite, but I also like Jemima Kirke as Jessa, the British free spirit.
I’ve seen the first two episodes. I’m pretty sure I’m in the target audience for this show, and I think it sucks. Incredibly boring and populated with unlikeable, and, unforgivably, unfunny characters.
They hype for this show baffles me. I’ve seen the 3 episodes waiting for something to click, but mostly it’s me and my friends calling all the characters assholes.
I’m in the target audience, or maybe a little older (33 YO single woman) and…I dunno, I really WANT to like it. Mostly because the lead character is “fat” yeah I’m shallow. And some of the stuff they talk about or do has happened to me.
But it hasn’t “clicked” with me yet.
It sucks, but to be fair I am not the target audience, I just give anything HBO a try on principle. I watched half the first episode, and was turned off enough to go looking for bad reviews, which I knew would be the most entertaining thing produced by the show. It was begging to be ripped on. To my pleasant surprise, I found a perfectly suitable review by none other than Kenny Fuckin Powers. sorta…
Gawker is making a point of shredding it episode by episode. It was worth watching just enough of Girls to appreciate another level of humor in Eastbound and Down (of which I am proud to be the target audience).
I stumbled across one episode. To be honest, I’m pretty much sick of the whole “angsty young adults struggling in New York with their quarter life crisis” thing in film and tv.
I’m gonna be different here - I love the show. I think it feels real, and it reminds me a LOT of me and my friends in our early/mid 20s. I like that it shows how weird and dysfunctional relationships often are during that age period. I also like that the people look like real people.
Real people? Well the main character’s gross boyfriend is … Gross. So I guess that’s real.
I just found out that all four of the principal actors have famous parents. And one of those famous parents is NBC’s Brian Williams.
I’m close enough to the demographic that it should appeal to me. The only difference being that I’m a guy, but yeah.
I think it’s total garbage. There’s almost nothing redeeming about any of it. The third episode is the only thing that rises to a level I would consider calling okay.
The critical praise I’ve seen for the show has more or less amounted to, “It’s so REAL and GENUINE and it’s LITERALLY JUST LIKE MY LIFE!” which I guess has become the hallmark for good fiction. I feel like the critics who have been lavishing it with praise – and that’s seriously no exaggeration, they’ve practically fallen to their knees in worship of the show – are going to look back in ten years and feel an almost obliterating embarrassment at the whole thing.
And it’s not that I think the whole “privileged twentysomething children discover that life is hard” isn’t worth exploring, but it should be done in a way that reveals something human and essential at the core of the characters. Which is to say that it should be more of an exploration and less of a video diary.
I agree most of the characters are assholes, especially the main character. I find it pretty funny though, and I’m about 15 years past the age where I should identify with them. I do like the Shoshanna character and although she is unlikeable, Hannah’s relationship with her boyfriend brings back reflections on stupid (not quite as stupid) mistakes I made myself when I was that age.
It’s getting a lot of heat for its lack of diversity. Which, ironically, is why I love it. (I’m black.) I find her isolated, privileged world hilariously fascinating.
I think the writing’s pretty smart or maybe just up my alley. The humor’s nicely understated. I dunno, I really like it. It seem like one of those ‘love it’ or ‘hate it’ shows with little middle ground, though.
I just realized that Zosia Mamet is Joyce on Mad Men. Wow. Those characters feel like they’re about 10 years apart in age.
It’s got titties, so I’ll watch it with the sound off. 
I saw the first two episodes, and didn’t care for it. It felt like the characters are satires of themselves.
The main character is a giant piece of shit. OMG, she has to get a job?! But the economy is tough, especially for such a creative person like her who has to work in a creative field! The fact that she is completely dismissive of getting any kind of entry-level retail/McD’s job because it’s “beneath her” is so frustrating…look, bitch, I worked for three years at a shit job in a shit economy before I was able to finally get hired for something in my field, so can you! Get the fuck over yourself! Oh, and she thinks she’s “fat”…right…she’s not even TV fat, and has a cute face. The worst things you can say about her is that she’s “frumpy,” and that’s more an attitude thing than a physical one.
The British girl is laughable in how cliched she is. Oh, she’s such a “unique, special snowflake free spirit! You can’t hold her down, man, and don’t you try!” I mean…am I supposed to like a character that has her parents pay for her to live no more than a couple months in all sorts of crazy locations? Oh, but men, she was, like, in the Bush in Australia, and the ghetto of Prague, man, so she, like, totally understands the REAL underclass…man, and, like, you’re all too hung up on your consumerism…man. And there was a little bit about how she’s too cool to text people (and has her own ~special word~ for it,) and is even so cool she blows off her own abortion to drink in a dive bar and fuck some random guy who walked in…because that random guy is too cool to even have a cell phone at all!
And the virgin…holy Hell, she is one big pot of annoying. She’s like a bad woman’s magazine made into a person…spouting BS about “dream boards,” and comparing all the women to Sex and the City characters, spouting crap from a dating advice book that she literally carries around with here everywhere she goes. And surprise, surprise, beneath that veneer she admits she’s a virgin because all of the media she’s seen has built it up so much she’s afraid she’d suck at it, or something…never mind the fact that there is no way in Hell a girl in her 20’s could keep the fact that’s a virgin secret from her best friends. I think they’d catch on.
The last girl is actually the only one that seems normal, and not a raging psycho.
Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but I don’t think this is the kind of show where you’re supposed to ‘like’ the characters.
(Not comparing it in terms of quality or tone but) I look at it as more like Seinfeld. I think Schadenfreude is a very big part of the point.
I agree with this - the characters on the whole aren’t likable. But I’m OK with that; that’s part of the reason why the show seems real to me. I can look back at me and my friends at that age and it’s amazing how horribly unlikable we were at times. It’s a confusing time of life, you’re not a kid anymore, but you don’t really have a lot of adult skills either, and the result is you do stupid, unlikable things a lot.
It’s like Friends, except where you hate all the characters.
I guess I just mean it’s like Friends.
I enjoy shows where the characters are unlikeable (I think Always Sunny in Philadelphia takes the cake for this category,) but that’s not just it. I guess it’s ok if the characters are douches if they show is also funny…I chuckled a few times during “Girls,” but no big laughs…I mean, it is supposed to be a comedy, right? I guess it might just be a 30-minute drama, but if so, it’s rather light on the drama, too…when the two worse things that happen is the main character has to get a job, and another character almost gets an abortion, but then they do a cop out and she doesn’t even need one anyway, there’s not much conflict.
I thought the first episode was just okay but episodes 2 and 3 were much better. I like it. I don’t know of anyone who is saying it is"Just like my life!" what I have heard is it has a distinctive voice and an interesting point of view and I agree with both of those things.
I am not sure I like it as much as some of the critics also I would agree the show isn’t for everyone and there are legitimate reasons not to like it but I think some of backlash is mean spirited and general internet hostility.
Saw the third episode and it was strike three. I tried, but it’s too arch and self-satisfied to make it worth the obnoxious upper-class Gen Y carnival of angst.