Girls5eva: Season One

May 10, 2021 3:50 AM - Season 1 (Full Season)

A one-hit-wonder band from the '90s gets a second shot at fame when they're sampled by a young star.

Streaming in the US on Peacock.

posted by DirtyOldTown (5 comments total)

This was very light and pretty fun. The expected satire on the music biz and jokes on early oughts culture are there and are funny. But it's also a warm-hearted story about friends who just want their reason to be together back, this time being heard as their authentic selves instead of as problematic packaged creations.

The cast (Sara Bareilles, Renee Elise Goldberry Busy Phillips, and Paula Pell) is top notch and having a blast, managing to play very silly things a bit straighter than people in Tina Fey related shows usually bother with. It makes the whole show play a bit sweeter. And, not only is the show (which Fey produced but did not create or write) not as casually problematic as Fey's work sometimes is, it's actually reflective on problematic stuff at various points. Meredith Scardino manages to give the show the goofy optimism of the better parts of Kimmy Schmidt (which she worked on) without the full-on absurdity or casual contempt that show sometimes got mired in.

This is very, very slight stuff, done well. It's a goofy cream puff of a show, but our team all enjoyed it throughout.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:56 AM on May 10, 2021 [6 favorites]

Oh my god, this is essentially The Wonder Years for people who were teenage girls from 1998-2002 which is ME. I didn't know I was getting my own Wonder Years but I love it! I laughed so much. I loved all the videos cause I remembered almost all of the references.
Also I was an original Hamilton bootleg from YouTube fan so I was happy to see Renee Elise Goldberry and she's so good!
posted by bleep at 7:54 PM on May 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

That part where they made fun of that awful throaty baby pop singer sound I screamed, I didn't know anyone else noticed that.
posted by bleep at 7:26 PM on May 12, 2021

I've had the theme song in my head fairly constantly since this came out.

Fun fact: Girls5Eva has a 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:15 AM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is fun! It could have easily been really mean spirited, but they kept it kind.
posted by porpoise at 4:17 PM on January 28, 2023