Monday night, I sat down to watch Backpackers and Seed with my roommate, expecting a mildly enjoyable girls night. I didn’t expect the shows to be that great, but I felt there had to be some reason the CW would decide to air them, considering they already exist in some capacity. Backpackers began as a web series on the CW’s online content site coincidentally called Seed. Season one consists of the existing short webisodes being patched together to make up the full length episode 1 – 4, followed by a brand new set of episodes for 6 – 10. Seed is a Canadian show which has already aired two seasons in its home country.
Backpackers starts, and at the very beginning we get a long-winded and uncomfortable scene between the main character and his fiance, where they decide since they have both only been with each other it would be insane to get married. They mutually come to the conclusion that they must spend some time apart and have lots of different sexual experiences, then get married and never tell each other what they did when they were apart. Such is the very clever basis for a show about two bros traveling through Europe trolling for some strange. My roommate and I look at each other and scrunch our noses.
Then we cut to commercial break and an ad comes on for Seed. While admittedly Seed looks a little more put together (probably because it wasn’t originally recorded for the internet), it’s about a sperm donor who finds out he has tons of children. My roommate declares out loud, “I hate this already.” I agree, and I find it more and more difficult to even pay attention to Backpackers, the premise so cliche and frankly, piggish.
I couldn’t even tell you if Seed was a good show because I’ll be honest – We turned Backpackers off in the middle, it put such a bad taste in our mouths.
I’ve been a huge fan of many CW shows. I really feel the network has been getting much better as a whole within the past few years. But there is no getting around it. Backpackers and Seed are just summer crap the network needs to burn off. They are lazy concepts with obvious jokes. This is the first time in a long time I’ve watched a CW show and could actually feel that I was too old for the demographic.
Don’t try to do comedy every again, CW. Please, for all of us. Just don’t.
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Marla Pachter is a comedic writer, obsessed with all things television. She doesn’t discriminate against TV shows, which either results in pleasant surprise or an eviscerating review for your reading pleasure. Marla loves Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine Nine, and she will probably be watching new seasons of Grey’s Anatomy until she’s 90. Sometimes she writes TV shows herself, but they don’t air on television. She also likes big butts and she cannot lie. (That was a lie). @MarlaPachter
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