Is Whitney Worth Watching Yet?

Show: Whitney.

Premiered: Fall 2011.

Why Was It Made? Whitney Cummings, the show's creator and star, is an increasingly well-known standup comic who cut her teeth on Comedy Central Roasts. NBC evidently thought she had broken out sufficiently to headline her own sitcom.

Why Did I Stop Watching? Cummings's abrasive persona works fine enough on a roast, but is a lot to take in a sitcom that revolves around her. Also, for all the show's lip service to (character) Whitney's unconventional womanhood -- unlike what the show thinks is every other woman alive, Whitney doesn't want to get married! -- the show is profoundly sexist.

Why Give It Another Shot? Whitney was a frequent target of criticism in its first season for its "men are from Mars" BS and distractingly phony-sounding studio audience (I know it's a laugh track, but let's pretend to believe the show's marketing), so maybe its producers took some of that in and learned from it.

What Aspects Of The Latest Episode Would Seem To Invite Further Viewing? Zoe Lister-Jones (of this summer's charming Lola Versus, which she also co-wrote) is still on the show. Whitney wore a really cute top (above).

What Aspects Of The Latest Episode Discourage Further Viewing? Even though Whitney's unwillingness to marry her boyfriend Alex (Chris D'Elia) was a significant plot point in, at least, the Whitney pilot -- I didn't watch further than that -- Season 2 finds the couple deciding they're "married" without actually having a ceremony. Even without a ring or a wedding, Whitney's new identity as a wife immediately flips her into a needy, neurotic cliché. Which she already was, but now the obnoxiousness is off the charts. Equally unpleasant is D'Elia's Alex. In a bit of poor timing, D'Elia appeared on Comedy Central's Mash-Up this week, doing a standup set that was about 60% racial material. Comedy Central wisely did not publish that part of his set, but here he is on Lopez Tonight with another variation on the same theme.

Unpleasant! Once I saw D'Elia's standup, it was impossible for me to buy into the show's romantic comedy because I just wanted Whitney and Alex both to fall into an active volcano.

Final Verdict: Still terrible.