Seriously, Dude, What About Brian?

Well, first of all, I'm reasonably certain that he has, in the words of the adorable toddler daughter of a friend of mine, a buh-gina.

Simply put, after two episodes I can say with a crushing degree of certainty that this Brian character is not like any man -- straight or gay -- I have ever met in my life.

Seriously. Who is this guy? He's not from Mars.



Let's look at the evidence:

• He lets a crazy woman who he's broken up with after dating for just two weeks force him out of his house.
• He's totally single, totally unencumbered, and he kvetches about sleeping with two women in a 24 hour period. The only dilemna he would reasonably face in reality is this: Do I tell all my friends one-by-one, or gather them together and tell them all at once so I don't risk one of them finding out from someone else besides me?
• When the best-friend's-fiancee tries to assuage her kissy-kissy guilt by setting him up with her friend... Sorry...I mean ambushing him...he does not immediately call bullshit. He just sits there and takes it.

There's a hundred more. But you know, why bother? You can see what they were going for here. This was all set and bothered to be ABC's next Grey's Anatomy. The problem is, unlike that show, this one's supposed to be set around a man.

And it's not.

It's set around a woman's fantasy projection of how men should be.

This is exactly what I was talking about in The Eyeballs of Men.

Except for the asshole-best-friend character, all the women are in charge in their relationships. The women drive the stories. Now, that in and of itself is the dynamic in a lot of relationships, but it's not something you're going to get men to watch.

There's an interesting study floating around about the kinds of shows men watch. And it's very revealing. Men tend to identify with main characters who have a code...who do what they think is right, even if that brings them into conflict with society, or the law. Tony Soprano. Greg House. Vic Mackey. You know another character a lot of men I know relate to? Nate Fisher. No kidding. Frustrating, maddening, scream-at-the-tv Nate. Narm Nate. Because in his own way, he's doing the same thing. He's doing the best he can with the cards he's been dealt -- and even if he doesn't make the right choices, he's trying. That is something men can relate to.

Not. Brian.

My sister emailed me the other day. She lives in Washington now, and I don't see or hear from her all that much, so her emails are always a real pleasure. She saw Brian. She liked it. She Brian was hot. And he is hot. Or, to put it more accurately...he is pretty.

Brian is the prettiest woman on the show.

It should come as no surprise that the creator of What About Brian?, Dana Stevens, is female. But lest you think I'm going down some chauvinist road here -- I'm really not. Yes, I recognize that if the male characters on Brian are wishful-thinking stereotypes, it's no different than the flat wife and girlfriend roles male screenwriters have written for women for years. But the reality is that you don't have to be a gender, to write a gender. Larry's Party by the late Carol Shields nails men. John Irving's A Widow for One Year feels like it was written by a woman. James L. Brooks wrote Holly Hunter's character in Broadcast News and it was beautiful and true. Sex In The City and Desperate Housewives are shows that women have flocked to because those characters resonated with them. Both shows were created by gay men.

But if it's going to resonate -- you have to push deeper. You can't fall back on stereotypes, or convenience, or wishful thinking.

I heard gossip about this pilot from someone who saw the original version, before they recast the main love interest. Canadian actor Polly Shannon was booted from the show, and the woman they ultimately cast was in. Apparently, at the same time they shaved off the more quirky reading Shannon brought to the part, they also re-shot and re-set a lot of the scenes, and whittled the edges off. The kiss between Fiancee and Brian went from a drunken smoochup back at his place -- where there's real jeopardy -- to an almost accidental afterthought in a closet. In reshooting the rest, too -- what was edgy or quirky was made ersatz and bland. They hived the edges off. All of them.

So, What About Brian? Judging by the creative direction they chose, and the dropoff in ratings from Episode 1 to 2... I think he's toast.

Because at the end of the day, I'm not sure women want to see shows built around false projections of men, any more than men do. Grey's Anatomy, remember, is about the women.

But Brian? He sure has a purty mouth. Heh.