The Best Friend

Many years of being the Most Influential Webseries™ Critic Out There™ has taught me that first impressions are always correct.

I’m referring to first first impressions. Not the impression I get from seeing the first 15 seconds of a show, those 15 seconds are what I base my entire review on as they’re the only seconds of a show that matter in the slightest. I mean early impressions. The impressions I get from the title of a show or simply the feelings evoked by the link that I use to find a webseries™ in the first place.

Vampires are never “the best friend.” Therefore, I had little hopes for the webseries created by Marilyn Anne Michaels and Allie Smith, unfortunately titled “The Best Friend.”

“The Best Friend” follows the adventures of Sooze, a cute, self-obsessed individual who shops at the trendiest stores, can’t find the time to pay the rent, and takes full advantage of her lovelorn “best friend” “Millie.” Sooze is also a 27-year-old virgin, which means that her sexual weapon has been sharpened to a razor’s edge.

I will say that Sooze is, almost undoubtedly, the most interesting and sympathetic character in recent webseries™ history. The kind of girl you take to blood drives and go cape shopping with. The perfect creature.

There’s only one terrifying problem. She isn’t a creature at all. She is merely a… girl.

She wouldn’t go cape shopping. The perfect Vampire isn’t a Vampire after all. I finally discovered why Sooze is a virgin. She is an inexcusable tease.

I had to keep watching. I was positive that, at any moment, Sooze was sure to turn, bear her glorious teeth and tear Millie’s throat out. Isn’t that why she kept Millie around in the first place? To feed from? Have I been mistaken all these many years about what the term “wing woman” means? No. “The Best Friend” is in error. It has to be the case. In scientific experiments, my opinions have been lab-tested and proven to be accurate %112.5 of the time. You can’t argue with results like that.

Perhaps that’s why I’m so disenfranchised with “The Best Friend.” As I continued to watch, dumbfounded, I began to realize that “The Best Friend” is actually about the best friend, Millie (I know, right), and her campaign to turn an otherwise perfect being – through feelings (ugh) – into a simpering slushpile of humanity, thus destroying almost any hope that Sooze will ever turn out to be a Vampire.

Despite that, an upside to this webseries™ is watching Millie learn the error of her own wet-blanket, thoroughly un-Vampiric ways. I harbor little illusions, however, that any Vampirism is forthcoming. Most likely, both women will meet somewhere in the muddy middle and two lives will have been destroyed. And not in the delicious way.

That said, even though “The Best Friend” contained no Vampires (it took place in the San Fernando Valley and not one Vampire?! Honestly?!), it did contain an almost-Vampire. A Vampiric shell. A Vampy facade. And, as we know, appearances are the most important things in this world. And, more importantly, this webseries™ has reinforced my initial assertion that first first impressions are always correct. I did find “The Best Friend” enjoyable, albeit maddening. For that reason, and since the women go to a chic salon with an extremely hip name, I give “The Best Friend” my second highest rating.


Score = Blah.


What this show has:

Musical tips to fool a stalker

Backup Singers

Sequins

An Eviction Notice

A Doors Tee

Farmer’s Market

1,000 Cute Nicknames Based on “Millie”

A Haunted Size -2 Wedding Dress

Credit Dancing

Music

Big O

A 27-year-old Virgin

Footgasms

Official Dog Walker

Chicken Cutlets

Pillow Fight

Redhead Parade


What it doesn’t have:

Vampires

The Hubble Telescope



Dating in the Middle Ages

It was the most beautiful May evening I have ever seen. The minstrels were playing a charming little tune about King Richard’s slaughter of the Saracens during the Third Crusade when, suddenly, this tall Mummer, visaged in a mask with a nose almost a full cubit in length, held their hand out to me, and, in an angelic voice, asked “erect a putlog for byrban, squire?” The message was unmistakable. And I was smitten. We were inseparable for the rest of the festival. We did some hawking, watched a little shinty, made a few trips to the livery and, just as the moon was setting, witnessed a bear eat a dog for sport.

I’m sorry. I got lost there for a second. What was I talking about? Oh, yes: “Dating in the Middle Ages.”

DitMA (Feel free to use that nickname. Ditma. Has a certain, Obscure Government Agency ring to it), is a webseries™ from creator/star Devin Mills about a historical romance novelist looking for love in all the wrong ages. Most notably, her own.

See, she’s middle aged, which means that, statistically, she has a better chance of being struck by lightning while, simultaneously, being crowned the empress of a small planet, than she does of having intercourse. I’m almost positive I read that somewhere.

In the first episode, she dates a proctologist. In the second episode, she dates another proctologist who looks stunningly like the first one. Perhaps they’re twins. Then she becomes the centerpiece in a musical GaGa-esque orgy involving a cabal of dead-eyed Carey Grants.

She goes to a terminally hip online dating service for help before setting her romantic sights on the blond Duke of Hazard. …At least he’s nobility.

Hmm.

May I give this show a little advice (you other webseries™ producers would do well to heed also)?

Vampires.

They make excellent lovers. They’re good dates. If they’re feeling charitable, you might be able to talk them into paying for dinner. Even though they won’t eat. …At the restaurant. And, most people are unaware of this, Vampires mate for life. Just not always with the same person.

Also, DitMA, if you’re truly looking to raise your romance quotient, I have just one more thing to say: nothing brings two people together like a dog-eating bear.

DitMA’s lack of romantic Vamps is a large obstacle to enjoyment. However, I did appreciate the timely parodying of medieval witches. They give the term “hag” a bad name and had it coming. So, I give this show my second highest rating.


Score = Blah.


What this show has:

French Restaurants

Proctologists

Bo Duke

Caviar

Dating

Age

Middles

Ren Faire Costumes

Chocolate

Musical Numbers

A Tiny, Tim Burton-ish Top Hat


What it doesn’t have:

Vampires

Bendrake the Mummer

Awkward Embraces

Ok, gentlemen readers, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. If you’re historically prone to bouts of syncope (i.e. fainting) (normally I wouldn’t bother to define my more abstruse parlance, but notice, I directed these first few sentences to the male readers) you may want to take a seat. I have news that will shock and terrify you.

Women find dating to be difficult and they enjoy talking about it with their female compatriots.

I’ll pause for a moment to give you time to scrape your brains off of the nearest wall. For this indeed is a mind-blowing revelation.

Which brings me to “Awkward Embraces,” a webseries from writer/producer/star Jessica Mills about, you guessed it: dating. But there’s a twist; these dating encounters are awkward.

Now, I discover new webseries in a multitude of ways. I came across “Awkward Embraces” completely by accident. I stumbled upon it while looking for something else. And I have to admit, I was a little disappointed to discover that this show isn’t about uncomfortable hugging. But I got over that disappointment fairly quickly once I started watching. With the rogues gallery of awkwardly embraceables stumbling through Jessica’s vestibule, I felt that it could only be a matter of time before a Vampire with a penchant for “Star Trek: TNG” would be invited across her threshold.

Alas. It was not meant to be.

Oh, I realize that I haven’t formally invited my female readers into this conversation yet. I’m still speaking to the gentlemen. Which probably explains all the tittering at the “Jessica’s vestibule” sentence. Seriously, men, it’s time to invest in a thesaurus. And “tittering” means giggling, so grow up.

Ladies, please join us.

While I am bewildered as to why any contemporary show about dating wouldn’t include one single Vampire (or a married one for that matter), I do have to say that Jessica almost (almost) makes up for it with the geek factor. She’s an unapologetic geek. She uses it to pick up men. And what man doesn’t like to be outgeeked by their date? I once spent 12 days with a woman who spent the entire time trying to convince me that “The Odyssey” was just “The Iliad” with jokes. Stimulating.

By the way, I’m Team Agamemnon.

So, while the lack of anything Vampiric does handicap this show by default, it didn’t make me want to watch “Stargate SG1.” That’s always a plus. And the show almost stumbles on an algorithm for determining penis size based on bathroom acoustics and stream-strength. (Keep working on the math, ladies. Be sure to account for the prostate variable.)

I give “Awkward Embraces” my second highest rating.

Score = Blah.

What this show has:

Dating

Kosher Mexican Dining

Six Degrees of Doughnut Guy

A Super Mario Bros. Tee

Geeks

A Fanny Pack

I.T.

Bat’leth Talk

Star Trek Talk

Star Trek: TNG Talk

Quirky Friends

What it doesn’t have:

Vampires

Nativity Finger Puppets