Inventing Anna can't decide if it's frothy or prestigious

Plus my thoughts on 8 other new shows I'm watching.

On every 15th of the month, I share my thoughts on the handful of new shows I’ve been watching in the last month. Read to the end for a list of shows I’m keeping my eye out for in the next month, too. For access to the full list and to support my work as a writer, consider becoming a paid subscriber if you haven’t already.

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9. Pivoting (Fox)
My score: 35/100

There was a rollerblading episode I liked, I think. I’ve watched seven episodes of this comedy starring Eliza Coupe, Gennifer Goodwin, and Maggie Q as best friends who just lost the fourth in their group to cancer. It seems like it’d be up my alley but unfortunately most jokes fall flat, and I don’t totally buy the chemistry between the three leads. The husband characters are unbearable, and it doesn’t seem the show has anything particularly profound to say about grief beyond “our friend died!”

The deceased friend is the only Black woman on the series, but we don’t even get flashbacks or any sense that she was a real person in their lives—she’s usually sort of an after-thought. Maggie Q’s character quits medicine to work as a “low-pressure” grocery store clerk job and it reads uncomfortably—what about the last two years is so comedic about minimum wage grocery clerks? I’m not even sure why I’m still watching, frankly.

8. Inventing Anna (Netflix)
My score: 57/100

I came into Inventing Anna with the wrong expectations. I expected a certain sheen and precision from the first project Shonda Rhimes has written herself since Scandal, this time via her very expensive Netflix deal. But the show almost feels like it’s operating in Scandal’s sandbox: the same directors, a large number of the same actors, and the same frothy vibe that doesn’t quite click with the real-life unravelling of Anna Delvey. It’s definitely satisfying to watch Anna Chlumsky (too many Annas!) sink her teeth into her first major TV role since Veep as the journalist investigating the case, but let’s be realistic: this is not prestige, quality television.

No offence to all involved but it reads as trashy TV, and not even the Ryan Murphy campy kind. It feels like the writers couldn’t pick a lane. Take the opening credits, for instance—a total after-thought. And love her to death, but Julia Garner’s accent feels so awry to listen to, regardless of how close it is to Delvey’s real one. I’m not even really sure what the show is trying to say about scammers, the rich elite, feminism. “Intellectually empty and structurally disjointed” is how Inkoo Kang described it in a scathing review for The Washington Post. Eventually I just resigned myself to putting it on while I’m cooking and waiting for Garner’s iconic one-liners—make of that what you will.

7. Single Drunk Female (Freeform)
My score: 63/100