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Worst TV Show of the Week

2 Broke Girls on CBS

Ken Tucker, television critic of Entertainment Weekly, in a recent blog-post wrote: “Oh, dear. Three weeks in, 2 Broke Girls is not quite living up to its potential as the new season’s break-out/talent-filled/girl-power-trend sitcom. I’m not talking about ratings — those are solid, for sure. I mean the actual quality of the jokes…” Tucker went on to speculate about the show’s mediocrity, “Is it the hovering presence of co-producer Michael Patrick King, who wrote the second episode and doesn’t seem to have adjusted the vulgarity level to the right setting?” If the October 24^th episode is any indication, the vulgarity-meter isn’t merely on the wrong setting, it’s completely broken. For building episodes on a thin plot foundation barely holding up walls of tasteless, crass jokes haphazardly spackled together, 2 Broke Girls rightfully deserves the title of Worst TV Show of the Week.

Since most of the offensive content is in the form of throw-away jokes, it’s almost pointless to explain the plot. Instead, here’s a sample of the show’s brand of humor:

• Max chases down a man who left a meager tip and shames him in front of the woman he is with, and who announces that this is their first, and last, date. Max comments, “Sorry, dude, looks like this little tip lost you the chase to give her your little tip.”

• Caroline: “That $1.47 tip was a wake-up call, reminding me that life will always undervalue you if you let it. Yes, I’m been knocked down, but now it’s time to fight back and grab life by the balls.”

Max quips, “I don’t know if life likes having its balls grabbed. Some guys do, but those are          usually the ones that want you to spoon them.”

• Caroline: “Sleeping on that couch is holding me back. I never get a restful night sleep and I need a good nine hours.”

Max: “What you need is a good nine inches.”

• Max and Johnny ride Caroline’s horse.

Johnny: “Interesting bit of information about horses. They hurt your balls.”

• Max loses her balance and Johnny accidentally grabs her breast.

But the most tasteless joke occurred after Caroline instructed Max on how to hand out their business cards for their fledgling bakery:

• Max: “That sounds needy. Like when someone asks you to come to their one-woman show. (mockingly) Somebody date-raped me and I didn’t think I’d live through it, but I did and now I’m stronger and, uh, still needy.”

Really? The show supposedly about girl-power is mocking rape victims? For what? A joke that’s not even funny?

The show has already proven that it’s not above racial stereotypes. (Tucker also dinged the show for its denigrating portrayal of Han, the Asian owner of the diner where the girls work). And seemingly every other line is a clunky double-entendre. But joking about rape victims is a new low.

Tucker adroitly noted, “2 Broke Girls does that mediocre-sitcom thing of having its actors deliver lines as though they were jokes but which, upon cursory inspection, prove not to be.” Since the writers apparently don’t know which lines are jokes, perhaps someone should remind them which topics aren’t.

For crass, insensitive sexual content 2 Broke Girls has been named Worst TV Show of the Week.