Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce Anticipation

[Meredith Quill]

Anticipate Here!

[turbogirlnyc]

So this is Bravo's original scripted series? I'm curious to see how it does in the ratings. The few commercials I've seen haven't been very impressive. Just my opinion, of course. I think the main gal rubs me the wrong way or something. Meh.

[psychoticstate]

The subject matter would probably be funny and entertaining but I hated Lisa Cuddy with the power of a thousand suns and because of that, will refuse to watch this. 

[bref]

From the previews, it looks dreadful. And I *like* Lisa Edelstein. I'm predicting a flop.

[Petunia13]

^agreed with both of you. Something about the actress and her choices come across brittle.

I have nothing against the topic. It could be interesting, the jokes aren't funny and it seems like a Cougartown or OldChristine ripoff or something.

[TomGirl]

I'll watch anything with Janene Garafolo in it, so I'll give this a shot.

Edited November 30, 2014 by TomGirl

[Bossa Nova]

I sought out this forum to vent that even though the show has not even started yet....I am already sick of it ! Talk about over promotion ! Sheesh, all the commercials on Bravo , then the pop up ads on some of my regular go-to daily political sites. I feel like I 've seen the entire series already.
 
And I agree with all the above comments for the most part. The jokes and cougar type plots seem predictable and make the show seem like one l-o-n-g cliche'. And who is this Lisa Edelstein? She looks familiar, so I looked her up on imdb. She has had alot of TV work I see. But I already don't like her. She grates. The smile or something. Okay, you know who she does remind me of? Bethenny Frankel. Don't tell me that's who inspired the series. Hand slap to my forehead with an eyeroll....
 
I am also happy to see Jeannane Garafalo after a long absence on TV, and I am glad she got work. The last few times I saw her on TV (The BIll Maher show, etc) she seemed out of it. I had the sense she was struggling with some sort of substance abuse. All that said, I am not even sure I like her in the wing girl, buddy part. See, I feel like I know the entire characters show already.
 
Oh and one last thing: has anybody else noticed that Bravo has been running Sex and The City reruns constantly these last few weeks? Me suspects that is to entice old fans of SITC to tune in for this new show. Like its the same demographic. Ok maybe it sort of is. Or maybe Andy C is helping is good gal pal SJP earn some residuals for all the reruns.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Bossa Nova

[turbogirlnyc]

I might give this show a shot but going by the previews alone, I won't like it. In one preview, the main character states she and her (ex) husband graduate college in 1989. I know it's bleak but her chances of finding love again aren't that great. It's the opposite for her husband. That sh*t drives me insane.

 

Maybe it's true that Andy hates women because this series doesn't appear to show the main character in a good light. Just my opinion, btw. It shows the husband cheating with a younger woman and ridiculing his wife. Not to mention their son looks super young for a couple that graduated college in 1989. It's so freaking cliche. Do I think it will inspire tons of women who experience this in real life? Not a chance. Somehow I doubt "real" women divorcees (sp?) are that exstatic about chasing men 25+ years younger than themselves. Perhaps it would be different if all women had the body and money to upkeep a "youthful" appearance. But I digress... 

 

I think this will be a flop, as well. That said, I couldn't make myself sit through an episode of Sex & The City. I was much younger than the main characters and barely thought of marriage when that show aired. We know Andy Cohen is BFFs with Sarah Jessica Parker so SATC after divorce is highly probable.

Side note: I noticed the actors playing the husband and wife have the same last name. I guess they're married in real life or it's a huge coincidence.

[Chrissytd]

Side note: I noticed the actors playing the husband and wife have the same last name. I guess they're married in real life or it's a huge coincidence.

Just a coincidence. Paul Adelstein is married to Liza Weil (Paris from Gilmore Girls).

Edited December 3, 2014 by Chrissytd

[Sun-Bun]

That hideously annoying song all over the previews already annoyed me enough to not watch that show---why do these "empowering" chick song themes have to usually feature white chicks wailing all over a plodding formulaic pop beat? Ugh...

[Juneau Gal]

Yeah, not gonna watch. The main character looks borderline dirty and as though she would smell in real life. Sorry I couldn't frame it in better terms, but that is what her appearance evokes in me.

And Janaene Garafalo has played the same damn character since Sienfeld days. All in all, the show looks very tedious to me. The last thing I want to watch is a Sex in the City for 2014.

[ScoobieDoobs]

Not sure if I'm alone here, but I think a pic of a woman looking directly at the camera & giving the finger is not exactly pleasant.  In fact, it's pretty insulting to anyone lookin' at that pic.  OK, so I had to look closely to see that it's NOT her middle finger pointing out, but her ring finger.  Yeah, I get it, it's a joke, but one that's not exactly easy to comprehend.  All I get from that pic is I'm insulted, turned off & wouldn't wanna watch the show.  Exactly what ya don't want the ad for your show to do, right, Bravo?  Big fail.  I look at that pic & all I see is some older lady who looks like Bethenny giving me the finger.  Funny?  Not so much to me.

 

Lisa was laughing hysterically bout it on WWHL & said the backlash against this ad was great publicity.  Um, not so much, Lisa.  The ad stinks.  Cuz it would make potential viewers go out of their way to not watch the show.  But let's see how ratings turn out.  I predict bomb -- directly cuz of this campaign.

 

I watched the show & it's nothing like the promos.  From the promos I thought Lisa was playing a sad desperate older cougar lady bangin' every 22 year old dude she can get.  Her character is not like that at all.  I hated the show, but at least Lisa kept her dignity, which I assumed from the promos she must have thrown away.  Wtf was with those scuzzy misleading promos anyway?

Edited December 3, 2014 by ScoobieDoobs

[Persnickety1]

I haven't watched tonight's episode yet but I did stick it on the DVR.

 

Here's my take on this show.

 

First of all, how is it this show seems like some type of mutant rewrite of Carole Radziwill's "The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating"?

 

Even the titles are oddly similar.

 

I haven't read Carole's book, but with all the ballyhoo Andy and Bravo did letting Carole promote that book (which apparently was not picked up by Darren Starr in any form, judging by a pretty extensive Google and checking out Darren Starr's IMDB listings), why didn't Bravo just get the option on Carole's book and adapt it into their first scripted series?

 

I'm pretty sure an adaptation of Carole's book couldn't be any more inane than this show appears to be.  

 

I dunno.  Maybe I'm just tired, but this similarity in title and formulaic approach to "single girl" (divorced/widowed) in the big city has really been gnawing at my brain ever since this show was announced.  

Edited December 3, 2014 by Persnickety1

[ScoobieDoobs]

Well, when ya watch it, Persnickety, please come back & post your reaction.  Haven't read Carole's book, so can't say whether it's like it or not.  The biggest prob with the show is the depressing, kinda bitter vibe.  It's a real downer.  It's also boring & hard to follow.  While Lisa Edelstein is a good actress & fairly appealing, I'd be surprised if she alone could save this.  Janeane Garafolo is just unbearable to watch -- painful, actually.  Not sure I could get thru another ep.  Tried to watch it twice & got too bored to pay much attention each time.  You can promote the fuck outta this shit every 3 seconds, Bravo, but this one's a dog.  Andy must be glad they can't blame him for it.

[Jack Terrier]

Persnickity1

First of all, how is it this show seems like some type of mutant rewrite of Carole Radziwill's "The Widow's Guide to Sex and Dating"?

See, this whole time watching the previews I thought this was the case! I thought Bravo optioned Carole's book.

[Persnickety1]

Yeah, that's what I initially thought, too, "Oh, how nice, since Darren Starr didn't option Carole's book, Bravo has adapted it for TV."

 

Then I realized the main character wasn't a widow, and I thought perhaps Bravo had just chosen to go the divorce route rather than being widowed.

----------------------------------------------------

And then I started researching this morning and came up with this information.

 

Apparently, The Girlfriend's Guide is based on the writings of Vicki Iovine, which (grab your drink of choice and let me bore y'all to death here with some details and ramblings):

 

http://www.girlfriendsguide.com/site

 

Apparently The Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce is one of a series of writings by Ms. Iovine.  This is her website and it sounds as if her writings have been around for awhile, covering everything from divorce to pregnancy to motherhood, etc. 

 

I read an excerpt or two of a few of her writings here and there.  Sounds sharp, witty, snarky...Kinda like what I've heard Carole's character in TWGTSAD is.  .

 

Yet Ms. Iovine's GGTD was written in 2009.

 

Which is a quite a few years before Carole's TWGTSAD (2014).

 

Okay, now my head is spinning and I really really really need to rethink my stance on the whole "ghostwriter-gate" storyline from last year being some absurdity created by Aviva for a storyline.

 

I'm also thinking perhaps Carole's TWGTSAD isn't nearly as original as Carole would have us believe.  It sounds as if, for her fiction novel, Carole may have consciously or subconsciously adopted some of Ms. Iovine's writing style into her own novel.    

 

Even the title Carole chose is a pretty blatant twist on Ms. Iovine's writings.  

 

Maybe whoever that "inside source" feeding Aviva information really was onto something.  

 

Maybe not ghostwriting but perhaps a little...well, not plagiarism because Carole wouldn't have actually used passages from Ms. Iovine's writings, but...Questionable influence or inspiration?    

 

I'm thinking I may have to take one for the team and buy a used copy of Carole's book and one of Ms. Iovine's books to do my own comparison.

 

On, and I'm also wondering if perhaps Darren Starr may have passed on optioning Carole's book because he, too, saw way too many similarities to it and Ms. Iovine's GG writings and anticipated potential problems.  Obviously just wild speculation on my part here.  

 

And I'm still on my first cup of coffee so I'm probably not articulating the above information well at all.  Suffice to say, I'm now scratching my head and wondering if I need to rewatch last season's RHONYC and pay more attention to precisely what the fuck Aviva was babbling about and if it makes more sense now in the background of now knowing about Ms. Iovine's writings.  

 

Gah, it's all so confusing.  It's too early on a Saturday for me to wrap my overworked brain trying to comprehend it all.  

Edited December 6, 2014 by Persnickety1

[ScoobieDoobs]

Well, I never thought for a second Aviva "created" the ghostwriting accusations against Carole.  I think she actually did hear gossip about it, maybe from people at her publisher's office.  And yes, this could be why there was this gossip -- cuz Carole's story is not original at all.  While we would think Carole is way too smart to go & copy (plagiarize) anyone's work, who knows?  Others have tried to get away with it.  Was she merely strongly influenced or inspired?  Or are the similarities just a coincidence?  Sounds suspicious to me.

 

Anyhoo, this show has gotten such good reviews -- overwhelmingly -- from just about every critic out there, I may try to stick with it & give it a chance to develop.  This show has several probs.  The first being the downer vibe.  It's a turnoff for most people.  But critics have said this will change.  The thing is -- have they set the tone of the show with this depressing, bitter, angry vibe & turned potential viewers off in droves?  If they did -- and I suspect that's exactly what they did -- it'll be a killer for the show.

[Persnickety1]

Scoobs, I'm wondering if Ms. Iovine saw the similarities herself (kind of hard to ignore that eerily similar title of Carole's book) and, because Carole's book wasn't exactly a bestseller, just decided to let it go and not draw more attention to Carole's book (which would have likely resulted in increased sales of Carole's books and very hard to prove plagiarism or a variation thereof in a court of law).

 

Maybe I'm just old and jaded and skeptical, so I'm reading (hehe, bad pun) more into the situation but...

 

Yeah, I agree with you.  It definitely looks suspicious to me.  If I were Ms. Iovine, I probably would have been giving Carole's book the side eye just based on the title and then definitely read it myself to see how much, if any, of my writing style Carole had adopted along with the title.  

Edited December 6, 2014 by Persnickety1

[ScoobieDoobs]

I'll give Carole the benefit of the doubt cuz I basically like her.  I'm sure she wouldn't admit to it, but I bet what happened is, Carole read Iovine's work & related to it cuz of her own experiences being similar.  Maybe Carole thought she could write her own spin on the subject of Iovine's work -- and it ended up not being different enough or really not much different at all.

 

Viewership for the first ep was a bit over a mil.  Not horrible, but not great.  Let's see where the ratings go.  BH (which was on right before) viewership was nearly 2 mil.  Big dropoff & given the insanely heavy promotion, it's not a great sign.

[portfino]

Cable is different from network in that premier ratings are not necessarily representative of how things will wind up. Devious Maids had a very soft debut and recovered over the course of the season. Also, Bravo may be unwilling to give up on its first scripted series regardless of ratings.

[ScoobieDoobs]

I agree.  They're not gonna give up on it easily.  The ratings would have to dip really low.  And even then, they might move it to go after Atlanta -- altho I'm not sure if the audience for that show would give this one a boost at all.

[portfino]

According to Showbuzzdaily, the show did a .37 about a 20% drop. That's bad but maybe forgivable given the SOA finale crossed over into even unusual markets and the episode was released earlier. Even still, it's not Euros of Hollywood toxic. Also, I think Bravo is a L+7 network and this show has been getting (inexplicably IMO) good buzz in other places. That said, eventually there comes a point when it can't be saved.

[portfino]

Episode 3 was a .30 in the demo and 700k total viewers, that's another 20% drop. It's getting to the point where they have to put WWHL on at 10 and move it to 10:30 like People's Couch and Euros of Hollywood. Also, it's infinitely more expensive than the former.

 

As to whether they keep it going, this is getting really low. The conventional wisdom is that this will be renewed no matter what, but El Rey cancelled Matador and CW cancelled Runaway back in the day, so it's not impossible. Unless there are major DVR numbers, you have to wonder what the marketing plan is if the show is renewed - "Hey, here's this show you hated. Have some more, you idiots."

[ScoobieDoobs]

Thanks for posting this.  At 700 thou that's a number for cancellation for any of Bravo's other shows.  Given how awful this latest ep was, I strongly suspect the next ep's ratings will be even worse.  I predict Bravo will just yank it before the full run if it dips significantly below 600 thou.  Maybe they'll run the rest of it on weekends or late nite, when they don't care.  It's really no reflection on Bravo that this show is tanking.  It's a lousy show.  I see why they thought it might be a fit for the Bravo audience.  Bottom line is the show sucks & it's turning viewers off in droves.  Maybe Bravo execs were off in not seeing just how bad this show is.  But I get they were eager to have a scripted show on their network.  They should keep trying.  But this one ain't it.

[portfino]

I doubt they actually yank it or even burn it on weekends. Cable rarely does that. A move to 10:30 after an hour and a half RHOBH (that's actually 1 hour of RHOBH and then WWHL) strikes me as more likely. Also, they probably had low expectations for the next two weeks anyway so that gets them through 5 episodes. They can suck up 8 bad weeks.

 

I wonder if there was some major snafu between development and marketing. Just last week Bravo sent plush hunk dolls to TV critics. They are still trying to convince people this is Sex and the City, when I don't think that's the show's intention.

 

[ScoobieDoobs]

Agreed.  The commercials before the show started were so way off from what the show is about.  It was a mistake to promote it that way.  Sex and the City, eh?  Hardly.  These women are far older & their situations are extremely different & these shows have such starkly different tones.  I suspect viewers expecting Sex in the City have been disappointed & have tuned out en masse.

 

I'm well aware of the Bravo tactics you've described.  It's possible they might do it with this show.  But I have a feeling the ratings are gonna sink so low, they may not even want to run it after BH anymore, but we'll see.