Should You Let Manhattan Love Story Borough Its Way Into Your Heart?

What Is This Thing?

Dana is a brand-new arrival in New York starting her first-ever publishing job. Peter is a jaded Manhattanite with a wandering eye. When Peter's sister-in-law sets him up with Dana, the two of them couldn't have less in common, but can they make it work? Their respective voice-overs might give us some clues!

When Is It On?

Tuesdays at 8:30 PM on ABC.

Why Was It Made Now?

Like A to Z, it may have been designed to fill the vacuum left by How I Met Your Mother.

What's Its Pedigree?

Series creator Jeff Lowell having worked on Inside Schwartz should tell you why the "what the characters are really thinking" motif appealed to him; his having worked on John Tucker Must Die and Two And A Half Men should tell you how evolved his view of gender relations is. As for the cast: you might remember Jake McDorman, who plays Peter, from his role as Evan on Greek; Dana is played by Analeigh Tipton, who got to the the top three on Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model, but has since gone on to be an actual actor in films including Crazy Stupid Love and Damsels In Distress.

...And?

I really loved Analeigh in her season on Top Model -- "McKey" won that year, WHICH WAS BULLSHIT -- and I was very happy for her in the way only an overinvested pop culture nerd can be when she resurfaced and started having a legitimate career. A sweet, light sitcom about dating a cute guy in the actual New York feels like exactly the sort of thing she should be doing, and judging by the pilot, she'll get to wear some very charming outfits.

...But?

While this is, on paper, a sweet, light sitcom about dating, in actuality, it is both sexist and unfunny. Our cold open features Peter walking through Soho mentally passing judgment on all the women he passes and whether he'd fuck them -- lucky you, anonymous pregnant lady, for your bursting breasts put you into the "would" column!!! Then we cut to Dana having her own carnal thoughts...ABOUT PURSES!!! And look, purses are great and Manhattan is a great place to ogle them, but this is the sort of thing that alerts you to the fact that this show was not written by a woman. Like, Mindy Lahiri and Jess Day also enjoy hot accessories, but not so much that it makes them blind to the charms of hot men that may cross their paths, and both those women were written by women. And while I can accept -- I GUESS -- that it's only fair that men get the opportunity to break into the TV business, if they're going to try to write shows that have their two opposite-sex leads sharing the spotlight and purporting to have them give the real truth of their experience in their voice-overs, then these men should at least talk to a woman one time about what her interests are.

But Dana is kind of a problem across the board. Having just moved to New York, it's her role to act like a totally untested moron, even though the pilot establishes that she moved to New York from Atlanta and not, like, Stars Hollow. Presumably living in one of the largest cities in the country would have taught her how not to embarrass herself on the bus or navigate an office building without getting locked in the stairwell, wouldn't it? In addition to all that, Dana is an idiot about social media, her phone, and the right location to check her pits before a date (somewhere other than right in front of the huge window the dude she's meeting is probably looking through). She's not even a Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Dana might actually be...touched?

And the worst thing about Dana's many foibles is that because Peter is supposed to be her opposite, it's hard not to side with him even though he's kind of a prick. Her list of things she wants to do in New York is riddled with clichés. She does show up for their blind date looking a mess and then START CRYING at his gentle ribbing. I understand that the way romcoms work is for each half of the couple to earn one another by growing toward each other's temperaments, but he's a dick and she's a bimbo and I honestly can't decide which is worse.

...So?

I was not bowled over by A to Z, but Manhattan Love Story makes that look like Annie Hall. You don't need to watch this.