Clip from the CW's new show, "The Beautiful Life" starring Mischa Barton
 
 

Another one of the CW’s new teen dramas, “The Beautiful Life: TBL,” has premiered, and, as usual, it is wildly entertaining. That said, it is far from perfect.

The show chronicles the lives of young models living in New York. “TBL” stars Sara Paxton as Raina Marrinelli, a fairly new model who overnight becomes the new “It” girl. Also starring is Ben Hollingsworth as Chris Andrews, a righteous tourist from Iowa who is discovered in a New York restaurant (yes, apparently that happens). Throughout the pilot episode, Raina helps Chris figure out his new world in New York, while she herself tries to deal with her newfound fame. Both of them try to keep their morals in the wild, corrupt world of modeling.

Throughout the rest of the episode, the plot switches between these two main storylines and those of the supporting characters. Most notably, Mischa Barton stars as washed-up model Sonja Stone, who is apparently hiding a secret (which seems to be in the shape of a daughter). Rounding out the cast is Corbin Bleu (from “High School Musical” fame) as model/wannabe-singer Isaac, Nico Tortorella as Cole, and Ashley Madekwe as the slightly jealous Marissa Delfina.

The biggest problem with “The Beautiful Life” is that it is a little too scattered. While Raina and Chris’s storylines are interesting and engaging, the other plotlines are boring. While in theory a show like this should have these interwoven stories, the stories unfortunately dilute the show and just prolong the breaks between the more interesting sections. They leave the show feeling a little convoluted.

As you might have heard, the biggest news story circulating around this show before it aired was Mischa Barton’s supposed breakdown, so of course everyone is wondering just how Mischa performed. The answer is that she was fine. She was definitely able to pull off playing a pathetically desperate model, but some of her acting just didn’t cut it. Mainly, she, for some reason, puts on an affected accent throughout the episode, which doesn’t make sense given her character.

Like many shows, “TBL” shows promise. It’s shot interestingly, it is set in New York, it features great clothes, and it has plenty of “beautiful” people. The only problem is its abundance of unnecessary storylines. They have two options to try to fix this: Either focus more on Raina and Chris and less on the peripheral characters or make the peripheral characters more interesting. In the long run, making the secondary characters more enticing would kick the show up to the notch that it needs, so take note, CW!

Rating: 3/5
Watch it: On the CW, Wednesday at  8 p.m.

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Tags: cw, TBL, Teen Drama, The Beautiful Life, tv

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Cadenza, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through this feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.