Selfie was a 2014 ABC sitcom starring Karen Gillan (yes, that Karen Gillan) and John Cho (yes, that John Cho). Selfie was a modern take on the classic musical, My Fair Lady (or Pygmalion), in which a "classy, sophisticated man" remakes a "trashy, uneducated woman"’s image. Selfie even pays homage to the classic tale of My Fair Lady by giving its two leads (Gillan and Cho) updated versions of the characters names, Eliza Dooley (for Eliza Doolittle) and Henry Higgs (for Henry Higgins).
Despite how obnoxious the trailer makes the show seem, I remembered really liking the show when it first aired on ABC. I would follow it week to week on TV until its unfortunate cancellation, after which ABC pushed the remaining episodes to Hulu to complete what was left of their first season.
I was always a little disappointed that this show was canceled. It never really got the attention that I felt like it deserved, and so recently I went looking to see how I could watch it once more.
Mind you, this show has been canceled for (7+) years. Even when it was on TV, it barely put out a 13 episode season, and so it's clear that Selfie has been discarded by ABC. To even locate a watchable copy of this show, I had to do some serious digging. It’s been removed from Hulu for who knows how long, and it isn't available through any ABC affiliate streaming service. In order to watch this show, I had to delve into the shady side of the internet and hope that my computer didn’t acquire some mysterious virus from unsavory foreign websites.
Nonetheless, I persisted, determined to watch this show for the first time in seven years.
And I have to say, this show was way ahead of its time.
Sure, it’s corny and a little dated, often making references to things that were very “of the moment” in 2014 (like naming the show Selfie for one thing), but it’s got a lot of good heart that I would have loved to have seen more of.
The fact that this show was canceled is truly a travesty, and I’m going to breakdown why. Get ready for a full scale run-down of why I believe Selfie should have been renewed for another season, and more people should be talking about it today.
Here goes:
Category 1: Plot- B+
This show seems to nail its premise like right out of the gate.
Eliza Dooley is the 2014 equivalent of an Instagram influencer, with hundreds of thousands of social media followers who wait for her to post day to day. (Again, some of the things she posts are horribly outdated. Remember when people used to post photos of their breakfasts instead of just putting them in their stories? And no one does a #ootd anymore unless it’s an ironic throwback.) She works a day job as a pharmaceutical sales rep for a children’s pharmaceutical company, which is where she meets Henry, an employee who is known for his ability to rebrand drugs.
Eliza approaches Henry with the idea to turn her from an Instagram “ratchet” (Oh my God, remember when people used to say “ratchet” all the time?) to a well put together professional who people could respect.
Aside from the many dated references and the slang that didn’t exactly age well, this show had a solid premise. It understood the assignment and made it work for the modern day. Eliza is in her early 20s and constantly shows up to work looking like she’s about to go clubbing. Henry is in his mid-forties and so uptight and job-obsessed that he doesn’t even know what FaceBook is. (I guess in 2021 it would be the opposite, as people in their mid-forties are now FaceBook’s core audience, and most people in their 20s are more interested in TikTok.)
Overall, the premise works because the dynamic really feels like it is reaching across generations. Selfie is cute in its attempt to make fun of both social media obsessed young people and more tech averse older people. Which brings me to my next category-
Category 2: Comedy- B-
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the humor of this show still holds up even though it’s been seven years after it initially aired on ABC. In fact, there was an “ok boomer” joke in one of the earlier episodes of the show that easily could have been written last week. This show truly feels like it was ahead of its time. A lot of the themes that are discussed in the humor are still funny.
A lot of the humor stems from the main characters and how they interact, as Eliza comes across as vapid and selfish in a relatable way, and Henry seems uptight but in a likeable way. They play off of each other well in a way that makes them both funnier characters and makes the show funnier as a whole (kind of like Captain Holt and Jake Peralta’s relationship from Brooklyn 99).
Overall, I wouldn’t rate this show as “laugh out loud funny” (or “LOL funny” as Eliza would probably say), but it’s definitely a good time to watch and it’s easy to enjoy even after nearly a decade has passed.
Categories 3 & 4: Characters & Casting- A
I’ll say this about Selfie: the casting was spot on.
For starters, choosing Karen Gillan for the role of Eliza Dooley, fresh off of her run as the Doctor’s companion on Doctor Who, was probably the best decision that ABC could have made. We may currently know Karen Gillan for her more popular projects such as starring as Nebula in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, or even playing Ruby Roundhouse in the latest Jumanji movie franchise, but to me, she will always be Eliza Dooley.
Karen Gillan makes Eliza work as a character. I’m confident that other actors would have botched the line delivery to make Eliza look stupid or unsympathetic when she’s complaining about something trivial or trying to get more followers on Instagram. Karen makes you care about Eliza as a person and not just as a character, which is why the show works.
Casting her was a perfect decision for this show, and I applaud the casting director who chose her for the role.
The same could be said about John Cho. Mostly known for his work in the Harold and Kumar franchise back in the early thousands, John Cho has proven himself to be not only a comedic juggernaut, but also just a really cool guy. Now he’s mostly well known for his 2018 movie, Searching, which made history because it was the first mainstream thriller to star an Asian-American lead. (Not John Cho single handedly breaking down barriers in Hollywood...)
I firmly believe that no one else could have played Henry Higgs as earnestly and hilariously as John Cho did. Between the two leads, he is clearly the straight man to Eliza’s childish antics, and he grounds the humor in a sense of realism that makes the show come to life.
To put it less abstractly, John Cho is damn funny and charming on the show.
It especially helps that none of the characters on the show are one-dimensional.
Eliza is fun and light-hearted and lacks just enough self-awareness to be charming and not unlikeable. She refuses to be slut shamed, despite having multiple relationships with guys around the office, and she has a big heart, often thinking of others (once she learns that it’s the right thing to do).
Meanwhile, Henry is uptight and serious, but not completely unwilling to come out of his shell. In fact, he’s secretly afraid to do so, despite how comfortable he seems being so stern all the time. As you can expect, this makes for great wholesome comedy.
I didn’t even mention the other characters on the show, like the front office assistant Charmonique, played by Tony winning actor Da’Vine Joy Randolph, or the boss of the pharmaceutical company, Sam Saperstein, played by David Harewood. Both of these characters are also delightful in their roles and bring a lot of life and color to the show (both literally and figuratively).
Both of these categories tie into the next thing that I wanted to highlight about this show- which is:
Category 5: Diversity- B+
Not to give a TV show credit for literally doing the bare minimum, but this is the first mainstream sitcom that features an Asian male romantic lead opposite a white lead. In fact, if you read John Cho's Wikipedia page, he is confirmed as the first Asian-American actor to be a romantic lead on network TV: "He also made history in American television as the first Asian-American actor cast as a romantic lead when he starred as Henry Higgs in the 2014 sitcom Selfie."
This was groundbreaking, but also heartbreaking for me to discover. Without John Cho, we never would have had characters like Jason Mendoza on The Good Place, or Josh Chan on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (both of which I highly recommend, by the way). Clearly, we have a long way to go in terms of male Asian representation (and Asian representation in general), but I thought it was wild that Selfie, a show that no one remembers, was the first one to actually show an Asian male lead having a romantic relationship without treating it as a joke (like Raj from The Big Bang Theory, who was notoriously bad with women for a gag).
For 2014, though, I have to admit that this show was really forward-thinking in terms of its representation.
For example, they gave one of the show’s main black characters an Afrocentric name, and it was never once used as a punchline (it’s only brought up as strange once in the pilot, and then never talked about again).
Selfie shows more than one interracial relationship, and it’s not afraid to show people with disabilities, as there is even an employee who is blind working at Eliza’s pharmaceutical company.
I will say that there were a few weird moments in the show regarding Asian fetishization, but overall, they were so quick that they didn’t leave a lingering bad taste in my mouth.
Overall, the representation in the show wasn’t perfect, but they tried, and it really shows.
Mind you, this show was canceled after 13 episodes, but I can say that Selfie laid the necessary groundwork for other shows to build on and eventually be renewed.
Category 6: Brand-Awareness- C-
Despite the poor branding, this show is practically perfect.
It cannot be overstated, however, that naming the show Selfie was probably one of the worst choices that were made in pre-production. This is made painfully clear in this clip of an ABC interview with Cho and Gillan about the show:
Poor naming choices aside, I believe this show may have stumbled right out of the gate when trying to attract a new audience. Strangely enough, to the uninitiated, Selfie can present itself as a piece of anti-internet propaganda.
Upon first glance, it becomes apparent that Eliza's whole problem is that she doesn't "put down her phone" or "make eye contact with anyone anymore." This can't help but elicit a sigh out of most people because it's such a (quote, unquote) "Boomer" way to look at the overarching problem of the show. I can understand how this may initially put off some people. Hell, most of Henry's dialogue throughout the first season is "put your phone down" or "you don't need to tweet everything."
I can absolutely understand how that comes across like someone listening to their parents nag about how much screen time they're consuming.
HOWEVER, the show's not just about Eliza's problematic social media addiction and why she should just "go outside and meet people in the real world." The show also is about how isolating social media is, and how sometimes it can be an escape mechanism for those of us experiencing loneliness and tough times. Yes, they do also include the "pay attention to what's right in front of you instead of what's on your screen" moral, but it's tastefully done and not as cringey as it sounds.
Eliza really comes to realize that she uses social media as a crutch because she used to be bullied in school, and she hides behind her followers because she's insecure about her life and who she grew up to be. Eventually she learns to make real friends at work who help her with these struggles, and her obsession with social media lessens over time.
To most of us now in 2021, this may sound foolish or incredibly cliché, but the show plays Eliza's growth earnestly, and it works. Despite how this show may seem at the offset, it doesn't aim to completely rid anyone of their social media or shame anyone of their habits, really. Instead, I believe Selfie aimed for its viewers to smile, and learn to strike a balance between social media and real life.
To reiterate my previous statement, the show is pretty much perfect.
Which begs the question, if this show’s so perfect, then why was it canceled?
The obvious answer was that people were not watching the show when it premiered on ABC. A lot of that can likely be attributed to the unfortunate name of the show (as "selfie" has since become a dated term that we seldom use in modern society, especially not after the Chainsmokers incident.). However, some of this can also be attributed to the fact that this show was not properly set up as an emerging series. Much to its detriment, Selfie premiered on Tuesday nights at 8pm, airing the same time as The Voice on NBC, one of ABC's biggest competitors (Andreeva, Deadline, 2014).
Truthfully, it's too late to even talk about a second season of Selfie, as the cultural zeitgeist basically ignored the initial season, and I'm sure most of the actors involved merely view this as a blip on their resume.
However, everyone and everyone's mother is into reboots these days, and so I don't see why we couldn't take the original concept and update the show for a more modern audience. Think iCarly (2021), but better.
So how do we update the show?
First thing's first, we would have to change the name of the show to something that wouldn't immediately alienate half of its audience. Preferably something with a little more staying power than Selfie.
Second thing that would have to be updated are the characters and their backstories.
In 2014, having hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram wasn't nearly as monetizable as it is now. In 2021, Instagram influencers can secure brand deals, modeling opportunities and music careers all based on their social media following. If Selfie were to be updated for a more current audience, Eliza would no longer work as a pharmaceutical sales rep, and would have fully embraced her social media fame.
As for Henry, he would still be the stodgy old guy in their relationship, but he would have to have a different career as well, in order to connect with the famous Eliza. Perhaps in the reboot he would become a talent manager who is used to managing older clientele that does not use social media. Then Eliza comes to him after a big social media scandal and begs him to change her entire image. (We already know a dynamic like this can work because of the HBO Max show, Hacks. In Hacks, an old washed-up comedienne gets paired up with a young writer in order to update her jokes and change her image. The Selfie reboot would be like a reverse Hacks.)
It was strange, though. As I was watching the original Selfie, it gave me a weird feeling of being lost in time. Most of the jokes still work in today’s society, but the actors saying them are much more famous now, and the show came out nearly a decade ago. It’s not quite ageless, but it’s definitely not from this time, either.
After all of that, I would love to say that I would recommend this show to you, but frankly it’s nearly impossible to find, and I wouldn’t want you to risk giving your computer a nasty virus to watch this show that wasn’t even picked up for a second season.
In short, I don't believe that Selfie got the respect it deserved, and I think it's a shame that you basically have to scour the bowels of the internet to even watch it now. It seems pointless to give it a rating since it’s not a show that people can watch for themselves, but in the spirit of writing reviews that no one asked for anyway, I would give Selfie an A-.
I know I'm not the only person who remembers this show, as I discovered an old Buzzfeed article from September of last year similarly lamenting about the loss of this great piece of media about the social media age. Several of the points that were in that post were expanded upon here, but if you would like to read the original Buzzfeed article, here is the link.
Thanks for reading everyone! Stay safe out there, and continue to wear your masks.