This Might Be the Worst Idea For a Brooklyn-Based TV Show Since 2 Broke Girls
What dark, Park Slope parenting secrets can television exploit for cheap laughs?
Splitsider announced today that there are two different sitcoms in development focused on the hijinks and hilarity that are all part of being a Brooklyn parent. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Brooklyn parents! What a great idea! I love talking to parents about their lives as parents and about their children. I have never, ever unfollowed someone on Twitter who is constantly talking about their kids. In fact, I’m more likely to follow someone if they create fake Twitter accounts for their kids. That kind of thing is gold. Gold! And I have never, ever blocked someone from my Facebook feed who is constantly updating the world on the different hues of shit her child produces. I would love to see and hear more about all these things all the time, particularly if it’s on basic cable, which is totally a thing that I watch on my television!”
That’s what you were thinking, right? Right. Well, lucky you, because these shows will surely hit all the most obvious tropes of Brooklyn parenting, or at least, they will if they’re like that other “Brooklyn” network show, 2 Broke Girls. One of the shows (produced by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos) will center around “a ‘free-spirited’ single mother of two in Brooklyn who runs a design company with her best friend,” while the other will feature “three moms who live in a Brooklyn high-rise and how they help each other stay sane (or try to) as they juggle their friendships, marriages and kids.” No word on whether or not Amy Sohn will be brought on as a consultant but we can dream, can’t we?
Here’s the thing, I don’t care about other people’s kids. Well, that’s not totally true. I care about my friends’ kids. For the most part. At least, I have more than a passing interest in them. But—and I say this as a parent, as a Brooklyn parent!—I have just about no interest in the kids of anyone who I don’t already know and care about. And I certainly wouldn’t want to watch a TV show about “Brooklyn parents” that will no doubt feature the worst kind of ultra-precocious, completely unbelievable kids that we haven’t seen the like of since the TGIF line-up in the mid-90s. It’s not that a smart show about parenting—even parenting in Brooklyn—can’t be done. Of course it can. But neither of these shows (and, yes, partly that’s elitism against network TV sitcoms) holds that much promise. The only promise that they hold is cringe-inducing jokes on a subject that is actually not all that interesting.
Recently, I was invited to a reading where the author promised that those in attendance would not only get to see her, but they’d also get to meet her new baby! Uh, squueee? I guess. Was that supposed to be an enticing offer? Meeting a baby? Because it didn’t work fore me. In fact, just like that, I decided not to go, because there is literally no event or place that I can imagine wanting to go to more because the presence of a baby is promised (threatened?). And that goes for TV too. There is just about nothing that will make me turn a channel faster than knowing that the presence of “parenting”—especially “Brooklyn parenting”—will be there. Maybe there’s an audience for this kind of thing somewhere (I mean, I think 2 Broke Girls is even still on? maybe?), but I don’t think it’s here in Brooklyn. At least, I hope not.
Follow Kristin Iversen on twitter @kmiversen
