J Lo’s new TV show opens to… reviews
Here are some reviews of “South Beach,” a new UPN drama produced by Jennifer Lopez (I’m sure she worked hard on this and didn’t just slap her name on it) set to premiere tonight at 8 p.m. EST.
Tawdry, empty and inept, South Beach is UPN’s too-late-in-the-game attempt to transfer The O.C. to the other coast. It’s the kind of new UPN show that used to make viewers dread new UPN shows, back in the days before Veronica Mars, Everybody Hates Chris and America’s Next Top Model helped the network turn the critical corner.
UPN’s new drama does what even the most ardent proponents of euthanasia can’t — eliminate practically all the seniors from Miami. In the process, it fashions a universe in which all women are models and all men have some sort of show biz career. And, every now and then, if a story emerges, it never hangs around for very long or gets told with conviction.
Like a misanthropic video postcard to the world, South Beach shimmers with civic depravity and dysfunction. Boobs. Cocaine (“the real South Beach diet”). Santeria. Boobs. Rollerblades. Cuban gangsters. Oily pecs. Exhibitionist bimbos. Dolce & Gabbana suits (fitted by mincing and very hands-on tailors). Crazed old people squawking about erectile dysfunction. Really, what more could you want to know about South Florida? Wait, did I mention the boobs?
“South Beach,” from executive producer Jennifer Lopez (and premiering tonight at 8 on WSBK, Ch. 38), could beat UPN’s dreadful “Sex, Love and Secrets,” which lasted only two weeks in the fall before it was yanked off the schedule.
Yes, “South Beach” is that bad.
