The L.A. Complex: Series Premiere

Pick a metropolis, any metropolis, and if there’s a show named after it (e.g. Dallas, Chicago Hope, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) you can bet the city itself is going to get some screen time. But The L.A. Complex has taken establishing shots to a hyperkinetic new level. Before commercials, after commercials, between scenes—there is some Sarah MacLachlan/ASPCA level of stock footage abuse going on here. (Every day in America, thousands suffer from the cruelty of an overabundance of Los Angeles-based stock footage. You can help.) And this was only the series premiere.

With the credits barely finished rolling on the first episode of its Hollywood-centric Canadian import, the CW was already jinxing itself. Desperately trying to entice America to return, the preview for next week’s The L.A. Complex proclaimed it a “New Hit Series.”  Come on, CW — at least wait for Nielsen and its younger DVR brethren to make that call. That’s really putting the horse before the cart, especially when your broadcast is about to become one of the worst openers in network television history.  (I’m not talking regular CW vs. other networks premieres; I’m talking 600,000 viewers bad.)

Two years ago the CW canceled its “attractive folk living in an apartment complex in Hollywood” series (aka, Melrose Place part deux) after a season. While I know we live in a land of short memories—and, granted, this is also the same industry with the gall to air two shows about vampire detectives in Los Angeles at the same time—but what made them think running The L.A. Complex was a good idea? Wash, rinse, repeat is the modus operandi for TV, but you have two options:  unique and unseen, or rote and ratings bonanza. Somehow, The L.A. Complex is neither.

Psychiatric conditions aside, the “complex” in The L.A. Complex  also has a literal meaning: A bunch of 20-somethings are trying to make it big in Hollywood—fame, fortune, avoiding the Los Angeles transit system—and have all gathered at a peculiarly communal shabby-chic motel (it’s the Olsen twins of extended stay living).

This narcissistic nirvana is populated by actors, writers, and dancers with varying degrees of success. There’s Raquel (Firefly’s Jewel Staite), a crone-like and grizzled has-been actress (translation: she’s about 30 years old); Connor (Jonathan Patrick Moore) the hottie Australian actor and future McDidgeridoo of a medical show; and Tariq (Benjamin Charles Watson), a starving young musician who just wants to play some of his beats for his hip-hop mogul boss but is stuck picking up dry-cleaning. The plethora of bland doesn’t end there. There’s also Nick (Joe Dinicol), the stand-up comedian who doesn’t need to quit his day job, and the bottle-blond dancer Alicia (Chelan Simmons) who’d give her left leg to be on Usher’s tour (but will also settle for stripping for cash instead of, you know, working at Starbucks).

Newcomer Abby (Degrassi’s Cassie Steele) is a young and hungry actress—she acts! She sings! She projectile vomits during her first big audition!—who moves in when she’s evicted from her previous apartment and serves as the audience’s introduction into this PG world. As a Toronto native without a visa, she also highlights the one political message of the show: the dangers of Canadian illegal immigration. (Think of the children, eh.)

Melodramatic with trying-too-hard-hipness, The L.A. Complex is soapy in a Bath & Body Works way—bright, bubbly, and wears off in about five minutes. It’s also utter harmlessness. No one is unlikeable or has even the slightest hint of roughness. The closest things to edges are the circular tops of Nick’s big ironic glasses. Raquel is prickly, but you just sort of feel bad for her inability to get a gig in a town that thinks women are used goods by 25. The most scandalous moment in the episode is crazy, unprotected sex on a rooftop (that cuts away) between Abby and Connor and the resulting banter over Plan B the next day. (Dear show: McDidgeridoo is a grown man. Does he really have to say the “morning after things” like he’s 10 years old?)

The actors are all shades of boring to OK to you-can-do-better-than-this-show. Staite and Steel have fanbases, but most of other others are rocking IMDB acting jobs titled “Elevator Hipster” and “Lotus Land Waitress.” Frankly, the only genuinely delightful character looks to be a minor player: the complex’s Usher-loving, Macbeth-quoting, stoner manager Eddie (Ennis Esmer) who says the most random, yet oddly endearing things.

I do like the show’s creator, Martin Gero—he wrote some of the series’ best episodes of Stargate: Atlantis and also co-wrote on Bored to Death—but everyone isn’t meant to write Canadian-Hollywood infused drama shows. Of course, this is only episode one. (Maybe aliens invade next week?) Because the show has already run its course on Canadian networks, the remaining five episodes are there to burn off if the CW wishes, but they might make better ratings with an emergency alert broadcast.

If we do reach The L.A. Complex’s finale, I wonder if by then they’ll have run out of establishing shots of gleaming skyscrapers and beautiful sunsets and settled instead for other L.A. staples. Who doesn’t want to see a homeless guy sleeping in front of a 7-Eleven, the garbage-strewn highways, or the Death Race-esque maneuvers of drivers picking up passengers at LAX?

Ah, Los Angeles. City of dreams.