James Van Der Beek as Himself - Apartment 23 on ABC

nahnatchka khan is a great real name

i'm sure they'll do something really cutting edge and clever and cool like have him be a jerk and then someone calls him 'van der douche'

chris eigeman's widest exposure?

He had that short arc on Malcolm in the Middle

also a season-long arc on the gilmore girls

I ... kind of liked this?

You've already watched it? Ooh!

It's on Hulu.

oh cool

Yeah, the commercials have made it look like it might be okay. Or rather that Krysten Ritter might be pretty good in it, at least.

It's filling the void that Happy Endings is leaving behind, so it had better be good.

On this warm March day in L.A., the 35-year-old, who for six seasons played good boy Dawson Leery on the hit series Dawson's Creek, is in the midst of a brutal session of Krav Maga, a martial art employed by the Israeli army. Barefoot and rocking a sleeveless shirt that more than justifies his free admission to the gun show, Van Der Beek kicks, punches, uppercuts, and roundhouses away at his instructor, fourth-degree black belt Jarret Waldman.

This was pretty funny. I kind of love the neighbor.

yeah, there's potential here. the vdb thing could become very funny, or get old very quickly.

The scene with her reporting for her first day of work had me cackling.

I watched this too but it seemed horrible and most of the jokes were really bad IMO!

agreed. The Dawson stuff was really tired too, especially the Vietnamese commercial.

krav maga seems like a sitcom go-to these days

ep 2 out. vdb still makes me feel iffy, but there was some good writing in the A plot. the ice skating gag was very good.

the casual psychopathy sort of reminds me of Better off Ted.

ok that's something that perks my interest

the difference is that 'better off ted' was funny

this is not as funny as Better Off Ted

some dude, I am betting you won't hate this

oh prob not. either way i will watch it for ritter. just the whole meta van der beek thing is a rmde red flag for me.

in the pilot he's mostly there to make himself look like a tool

djp: did you watch ep 2? that's the one where i made the ted connection -- only once or twice, i'll grant, but still...

yeah i have the sense that the vdb thing is really just him trying to pull a nph and go against type to revive a career.

haven't watched ep2 yet

that's kinda what i mean, celebs playing themselves unflatteringly is really really played out as a comedy device (xpost)

tbh the portrayal isn't 100% unflattering (shocker) but the degree of self-absorption given what he's been doing lately is kind of hilarious, esp. as a netizen who saw his series of anigifs and someone who cracked up at his blockbuster appearance in a Ke$ha video

it will probably build them a big viewership (at least for a while) w/ all the ppl who grew up with dawson. and it's a decent gag at first. i just have serious doubts about their ability to turn him into something that's not just one-note.

the weird thing about the van der beek premise is that dawsons creek was never that popular a show

i don't think its so much Dawson's Creek that drives the premise, as much as "lol james van der beek" and him being a B-level actor already unafraid to make fun of himself

it's easier to be willing to make fun of yourself when that's the only part you can get

The Creek was pretty "influential"

yeah i dont know if its because i was in highschool/college the same years as dawson's creek but i remember it being huge

miss u boo

http://i.imgur.com/4PS6D.jpg

haven't watched this show yet but i'll probably watch it tonight if its got krysten ritter looking hot is this what it is y/n

Not sold after watching the first two eps. (Pilot was kind of funny.) It's better than 2 Broke Girls but what isn't? I don't think the premise has much lasting power in it. There really doesn't seem to be much for June in this 'relationship'. I never watched Dawson's Creek, mind, so maybe I'm missing something?

xpost: y

in a lot of ways it falls flat but there's a definite kernel of something unique and promising in there and now and again there'll be a great line out of nowhere like "anyone wanna get weird and play Mario Kart?"

network television is kind of horrible

yeah it's no tim & eric huh

The Creek was pretty "influential"

― Number None, Wednesday, April 11, 2012 5:46 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...on a lot of CW shows that nobody on ILX watches

also kryyyyysten ritter has a good agent, i've seen puff pieces on her everywhere, including the NYT.

yea this was p disappointing & not sure i see much promise to it

i have no idea how they are going to milk 6 episodes out of this, let alone a whole season, especially when p much the entire conceit of the show gets blown in the pilot. this kinda felt like a case of, "oh shit our wild ass pitch actually got picked up, what the fuck are we going to do now?"

it's kind of a good thing if a sitcom doesn't map out the formula for every future episode with its pilot imo

i guess i'd be more kind if i didn't find 75% of the jokes terrible (to be fair, the other 25% were hilarious). these meta Dawson jokes weren't really that funny the first time Kevin Smith used them in Jay & Silent Bob and much less so in 2012.

gonna watch this tonight. it only has to be better than new girl.

its definitely not.

By virtue of not featuring Zooey Deschanel, it's better than The New Girl at the very LEAST.

Ok I really liked this ep. Managed to find myself pretty consistently surprised by the twists. The writing kept things fast paced. I found myself accidentally narrating the action outloud like a young child or something, just sort of to help myself keep up. The humor is still broad and "edgy" not at all like the character-driven stuff ilx/avclub tends to go for.

yeah def best one to date

still haven't watched this, but it looks like there's a chance it's gonna be an either/or situation with this and Happy Endings for renewal.

HE should and will arise victorious

i seriously doubt this will be renewed, but then again i never expected Happy Endings to come back, let alone be the best new sitcom of the year, so what the hell do i know about ABC execs

but yeah, i like this show... i wish they would kinda just let the B be a B without having every episode give her a face turn, but eh

xpost

what the hell do i know about ABC execs

They have an unwavering faith in Tim Allen.

At this point I think she's like less a B than just a self-involved narcissist with the attention span of a gnat. Which is a much more fun character.

massive lol at this last night

lots of free drugs & a baked potato bar was a good line

i loled at "vodka launch", feels v zeitgeisty

otoh i have more liquor rep and bartender friends than the average person i guess

i honestly wasn't sure if that was real or something they made up

yeah bro you can't put anything out in to the world anymore without a launch party

Someone in the AV Club comments called this show out as a live-action pastiche of American Dad with Chloe as the Roger character and that image has really stuck in my head, particularly with Ritter's semi-gangly body language.

oh it's really mean to compare this show to american dad

maybe it'll be as good as american dad at some point, but it'll take some time

http://www.avclub.com/articles/michael-bolton-to-star-in-abc-sitcom-as-himself-wh,86638/

woah guys! michael bolton! playing himself! i think this whole celebrity-playing-unflattering-version-of-themselves meta thing might finally go semi-mainstream soon!

welp, it's been a good run but I think it's time for humanity to call it

i know it's been discussed on other threads, i just wanted to troll gr80's thread again

oh my bad, carry on

hi al

y was there an ep of this sponsored by ppl magazine

show has been pretty funny lately, feel like it's hitting its stride

thanksgiving episode really delivered. they're walking a line between either humanizing ritter too much or just making her increasingly terrible (or just leaving her be and having the character end up one-note), but for now they're pulling it off. it's like if you built a whole show around kramer subplots.

well, bcz Quell doesnt remember it

So _Vamps_ is a really good film, and Ritter is perfect for it.

"You from Queens"

in other news, both this and happy endings seem like their ratings are pretty bad and they could be cancelled.

yeah they're both in burn-off mode, i think off the schedule by march

nothing says faith in a sitcom like a sunday night at 10pm slot

On the bright side, two new eps per week!*

*I have to look for a bright side.

well, its unofficially officially a wrap:

https://twitter.com/vanderjames/status/293824551354236928

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/apartment-23-final-episodes-online_n_3106468.html

man i loved thsi show

hulu has these up now.

looking at the previews of the 2013 season, I feel like this show was the far end of a pendulum swing now going back towards "mainstream" banality

network execs realized that they actually aired a show about self-superior urbanites interacting with a WB star and were like OMG FAMILIES FAMILIES FAMILIES

haha