It might be time for all of us, as a culture, to reconsider the impact of the Geico cavemen. Once merely the trite and amusing mascots for a car insurance company, they were subsequently featured in their own short-lived television series Cavemen, which quickly disappeared into the pop-culture ether after only six episodes. The show hasn’t been thought about much since, but now here we find ourselves with Samantha Who?, Christina Applegate’s latest attempt to build a brand around her not inconsiderable talent. Though the superficial similarities between the two programs are nonexistent, there is a solid case to be made that Samantha Who? is in fact the second show to be produced based entirely on commercial ad campaigns. It’s hard to pin down a single product or figure, but it’s even harder to watch an episode and not think that you’re watching an elongated version of every ad for yogurt, shoes, or any other product marketed towards single women that you’ve ever seen.
At the very beginning of the series, Samantha Newly (Applegate) was just beginning to recover from her crippling amnesia, which completely erased any memory of her former life. Taking this as an opportunity to totally reinvent herself, she resolves that she is going to make a point of being nicer to her on-and-off again boyfriend Todd (Barry Watson), more understanding to her parents Howard (Kevin Dunn) and Regina (Jean Smart), and a better friend to Andrea (Jennifer Esposito) and obligatory fat friend Dena (Melissa McCarthy). In this season, she more or less continues on her quest for self-reinvention with mixed results, her obstacles being her conflicted attraction to Todd and former boss Winston Funk (Billy Zane); Andrea’s relationship with closeted gay basketball star Tony Dane (McKinley Freeman); and the fact that she’s starting to get glimpses of the kind of person that she was before the accident, and they ain’t exactly pretty.
Christina Applegate is a very talented actress, and that is more than evident here, but in this case, that’s also something of a liability. Every time she is on screen (which is most of the time), it’s hard not to notice the huge distance between the energy and presence she brings to the role and the unimaginative, sterile nonsense that they have her concerned with. Bringing it back around to yogurt and shoe commercials, when have you ever seen any of the people who end up buying the product in question doing anything other than shopping, making sassy remarks, and lounging while being served by improbably attractive and subservient young men? This show is essentially the same thing. The main characters hang out at coffee shops, discuss men, and go out to clubs in the evening, without any of these aspects of their fairly cushy lifestyle ever put into jeopardy at any point. Yet they always seem to be panicking about something, be it some minor slip-up that occurred earlier or something that they said that might be misinterpreted, or some other problem that could be solved rather easily if anyone involved had any life skills to speak of.
And at the center of the whole thing is poor Miss Applegate, who’s trying very hard to pull all of it together (though she couldn’t quite do it; this was the final season of the show). But in the final analysis, who could carry a show that’s asking you to invest concern in an imaginary lifestyle? It’s hard enough to do it while snuggling with your Labrador Retriever in your oversized red sweater and lovingly smelling the coffee you just brewed; forget about investing your time week after week.
It sounds like a task so easy that a caveman could do it, but then you have to remember: they didn’t either.
DVD Bonus Features
In addition to every episode of the second and last season, this three-disc set also contains bloopers, several deleted scenes, a set tour with Christina Applegate, and a Christina dance moment. Over all, a sort of lackluster set for a sort of lackluster show.
"Samantha Who?: The Second and Final Season" is on sale August 25, 2009 and is rated NR. Television. Directed by Barnet Kellman, Beth McCarthy Miller, Joanna Kerns, Lee Shallat Chemel, Michael Spiller, Paul Lazarus, Rebecca Asher, Tucker Gates, Wendey Stanzler. Written by Marco Pennette, Donald Todd, Dawn DeKeyser, jim Reynolds, Pamela Ribon, Jessie Klein, Rafael Garcia, Bob Kushell, Alex Reid, Matthew Carlson, Annie Weisman, Chad Drew. Starring Jean Smart, Kevin Dunn, McKinley Freeman, Melissa McCarthy.
