Can Anybody Find Me "Somebodies" to Love?

Ok, so my apologies for the terrible title of this blog. But let's be honest, who doesn't love Queen and especially that song? It's been stuck in my head for days now ... probably because listening to it run around in my brain was a lot more entertaining than actually watching "Somebodies" on Wednesday in class. Well, that and "Trapped in the Closet" ... I mean, when Mr. Big/Angry Friend got shoved in the closet at his tennis instructor's house, it brought back some pretty intense memories of watching the entire R. Kelly "Trapped in the Closet" epic until 3 a.m. freshman year ... like every night. If you haven't seen it, I would advise watching Ch. 1 (of 12; it's quite the saga, you see). Seriously. You'll laugh.

But enough about R. Kelly's musical endeavors. We're here to talk about "Somebodies." Coming from a theater background, I can sometimes be (inadvertently) overly critical in moments such as this. So I'm trying to think of the best way to organize my thoughts here without sounding mean. First off, I'd like to say that I think it's really cool that this show came out of Athens and our very own Grady. I thought it was a pretty interesting experience for us to recognize locations around Athens and campus while watching a BET show. So kudos for that.

On a less positive note, I can't really envision anyone watching this show out of their own free will. See what I mean about coming off as overly critical? What I mean by that is I would never sit down on the sofa after a long day, hoping to zone out in from my tele for a little while, and say "Yes, Somebodies is on!" The basic premise of the show is solid, albeit potentially overplayed: a young Black man with no life plans in sight rising above what is expected of him to grow into a man. However, the acting is less than stellar. Actually, it was so bad it was distracting ... kind of stressed me out. Scottie and Diva are both weak actors- Diva in the overacting camp and Scottie in the underacting one. The real problem with this is that I don't feel a connection or relationship with any of the characters. I'm not really all that interested in what happens on the show because I don't particularly care one way or the other about the characters whose lives we are watching.

The plot was fairly predictable. Oh geez, you have ridiculously hot strippers, I mean, neighbors ... and look, now they moved away. I never saw that one coming. And I especially couldn't predict that your new neighbors just might be related to your landlord. That's just crazy talk, guys.

All in all, the show is lacking in several areas. Maybe with a little tweaking (or massive overhauling), it could have been pretty legit. I see crowd-pleasing potential, but it's just not there.

"And now I'm in this darkest closet, tryin' to figure out just how I'm gonna get my crazy ass up outta this house." (yeah, watch it.)