"I expect you to unleash holly hell on anybody who tries to hold you back."
The Bold Type - Advance Preview
I was going to name this article "How To Misinterpret Feminism", because there are many contradicting moments regarding feminism in this episode alone. But that would be unfair to this show, because this is not the show you'll watch when you want to ponder over the great mysteries of life or get your mind blown, this is the show to watch when you want to feel cozy for an hour, and maybe even grow to love these characters, and there is much to love about these women. Especially, Aisha Dee, I have to admit I've been in love with this woman since Chasing Life and I fell even deeper on Sweet/Vicious, she seems to be aiming her career towards giving visibility to important themes and empowering women, and I couldn't be prouder, even if the message in this show isn't even near as perfect as S/V's was.
As always the trailers give some things away but thankfully this is not one of those pilots that make no sense watching after the promos. For those of you who don't know, this show is about based on the story of Cosmopolitan and its Editor-in-Chief from 2012 to 2016, Joanna Coles. She's now Chief Content Officer of Hearst Magazines. On the show, it's called "Scarlet" magazine and the story picks up the day the main lead, Jane Sloan (Katie Stevens), gets promoted from assistant to writer. Of course, she has her two sidekicks Kat Edison (Aisha Dee), who's Social Media Director and Sutton (Meghann Fahy), ho's the only one that remains "toiling away in the assistant trenches", as she herself puts it, and her relationship with her boss, Lauren Parks is not the best.
Other important characters are the Editor-in-Chief Jaqueline Carlyle (Melora Hardin) who's clearly the hard-ass, bitchy boss, her acting is a bit too over the top at first but the character seems promising, Alex (Matt Ward) who's the work male sidekick, and Richard Hunter (Sam Page) who's a lawyer on the Steinem Publishing board, the magazine's publishing group. Speaking of which, it was funny to see the typical board, filled with old white men, listening to the article advances on how to best use a sex toy, and Jaqueline seems to enjoy the defiance.
Which brings me to one of the subjects that bugged me the most, and that is that they try to paint Jaqueline, and the magazine itself, like some feminist heaven, where the idea is not to please someone else but to please yourself, but no matter how noble the concept, she still gets excited about articles like the one presented by Jane about "how to stalk your unstalkable ex", and there are so many ways in which that is just wrong, I get that it's "entertainment" but it doesn't really go well with the whole changing-minds idea.
Still, this was very entertaining to watch and it had some very enjoyable moments and characters with a lot of potential, especially Kat, she clearly fights for what she believes in and even if she doesn't to get that much attention at first she manages to win everybody over, but then again, it's Aisha Dee, so why wouldn't she? She's one of the main people trying to get Scarlet to actually be what Jaqueline advertises, even when it's hard, but there are clearly two sides of the magazine fighting each other, I hope that's intentional and will be addressed later on as well.
Where did I see them? Melora Harding was on Monk, The Office, Transparent, and quite a few movies. Sam Page has a very long resume featuring popular shows like Mad Men, Gossip Girl, Desperate Housewives and more recently House of Cards and Switched at birth (I have a sense he has some Dorian Gray deal going on). Aisha Dee's most popular shows were Chasing Life and Sweet/Vicious, as I mentioned earlier. Katie Stevens was one of the break-out stars on Faking It. Matt Ward was on Tron and Charlie St. Cloud, among other movies. Meghann Fahy had some smaller roles on shows like Law & Order: SVU and Chicago Fire.
Some Teasers. There's an office romance and more than a few warm moments but there is one subject that seems to drive most of the pilot and is not resolved, I hope this just means they'll tackle it later on because otherwise, it's a little lackluster writing. Also, there are a few moments where another purpose for the magazine is mentioned and it really clicked for me. And last, but not least, Nikohl Boosheri, will play a very interesting character I'm sure we'll see on more than one occasion.
I sure will be looking forward to the rest of the season, how about you guys? Will you give this a shot?
Catch the Special Preview right after Prettly Little Liars at 9/8c on June 20th or the official two hour premiere at 9/8c on July 11th.
