Bad Teacher

This show is based on the Cameron Diaz movie whose title can be taken both ways -- she is a bad girl who just is teaching to make some money for plastic surgery to use to get a rich husband.  It wasn't very good -- reviews suggest Diaz's latest films aren't really though depends on which ones you read, perhaps. This is unfortunate really since I thought it would be at least a decent toss-a-away film, at least as good as The Sweetest Thing, which wasn't that good, but had its moments and a likable cast. 

The t.v. version is played by Ari Graynor, who seems to be on every other night on a replay of For a Good Time, Call... Watching the first episode, she has the look down.  On the other hand, I can see why some people over at IMDB didn't like the first episode as a whole.  The NYT review (a two for one deal) provided a generous analysis, noting in part that it gets better.  Such is the case for various shows in hindsight, but these days, you have so many more options and less rope. The review notes:

Network shows are a bit like mega-cruise ships. It takes time, money and an extraordinary feat of engineering to build something that large, but it’s also hard for anything to be nimble and fresh at such an unwieldy size. (Or avoid the occasional outbreak of gastrointestinal illness.) Both “Bad Teacher” and “Black Box” are constructed to appeal to a broad network audience. There are better dramas and comedies on cable and the Internet, but that’s not a fair comparison. “Black Box” and “Bad Teacher” hold up in their own ship class.

I'm not sure if there is that clear of a line between network and non-network (whatever that means these days*) shows and there is a lot of dross on cable and the Internet too.  There is a lot of dramas on cable (or whatever you call it these days), too many for me to keep up with, though a few of them surely are worthwhile. Not sure about all of these great comedies (more than one seems overrated).  Still, I appreciate the grading on a curve. This sort of thing should be done regularly for films too.

Again, going by the first episode -- which I turned off, to be honest -- don't even know how worthwhile this is though "on demand" allows me to watch it whenever.  Still, I appreciate the "ship class" bit.  OTOH, as noted here (did that bad film really gross THAT much?), the conceit of a bad girl with a heart is hard to keep up. Still, Graynor looks game and there are several familiar faces that should be too with the right material.

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* It was on CBS on Thursday, but the #BadTeacher hash tag shown on the screen on the beginning of the show reminded me of them doing that for shows on ABC Family.  Or, should I say overdoing it?