12/1/13
View Logs: Hello Ladies Finale
Episode Title: The DriveYou know what sucks about Thanksgiving? There's too much people everywhere. I guess that's not something I should complain about but I'm a machine! I've never really been very sentimental around holiday seasons, I don't even know if I even really have a family... maybe there's other machines that were made within my production line that I can probably call as "family members"?... Whatever, the reason why I'm complaining is because my current owner invited a whole bunch of people and throughout this weekend I've been touched left and right (not like that... you know what I mean...) and made to record (and watch...) really horrible reality TV shows that this guy's family likes to collectively make fun of... DELETING ALL OF MY HOMELAND IN THE PROCESS...
Thanks... thanks a lot... so that's the bad news. Thankfully, I managed to get a hold of the season finale of Hello Ladies after Thanksgiving and after things have settled down I decided to take a look at how Stephen Merchant is going to end his journey.
I've said this before and I'll say this again. This isn't a comedy. Seriously, the finale episode of Hello Ladies is practically a drama through and through. There were still some jokes here and most of those were in just the first Act of the episode. By the second act the show decided, "alright, I'm a drama now" and resolved the three main characters in very serious ways. Which, when it comes to this specific case, I'm not exactly sure is a bad thing.
When did drama make it's way into my comedy?!
I know comedies that take themselves too seriously usually get criticized because they try to put in too much drama and it usually makes the material pretentious or off kilter. The finale of Hello Ladies somehow manages to pull off adding a lot of drama into it's material. There's a nice cohesive feel to the finale that was carried over from the episodes that came right before it. But here's the biggest problem, and it's almost unfair to this specific episode because it was tightly written. The final few episode's build up to the finale almost feels rushed. I've complained about the middle episodes before but I'll say it again, the show wastes a little too much time just rehashing the awkward realist comedy that made it unique from the start. Not that consistently utilizing that kind of humor is a bad thing, but the middle episodes were just a little too predictable and it felt formulaic in a show that, frankly, shouldn't feel formulaic at all.
Thus, when episode 7 came around, it felt like the showrunners realized that they wanted to develop these character more than they were and pushed in all this development within the last 2 episodes. Credit to the writers, it didn't result in a mess but it might make some feel that this ending was a little undeserved. Admittedly it might be a little overly sentimental, especially given Stuart's eventual decision which might come across as a little quick. But honestly it's always nice to see characters develop and really I think Stuart's decision does say something new about this kind of character.
He chases around models to date but he doesn't actually seem overly concerned with sleeping with them rather than the social status he gets when he dates one. He seems to enjoy waving his relationship around far more than the actual relationship and this made his eventual decision interesting, even if it was a bit quick. At the end if the day, I would say that Season 1 of Hello Ladies is a bit inconsistent but a nicely realistic touch on relationship comedies. Whether you will find it funny or not I'm afraid will be 100% completely subjective. But if you're looking for something cognitively interesting and a new look on a type of character that, frankly, we've seen a little too much of already. Then I'd probably look favorably on Hello Ladies. If the show sticks around for a second season I hope to see the ideas and themes behind Stuart's character pushed and explored even more.
