Teen soap opera tells a tale of Greek life
Fraternity and sorority life on campus, that is. But the series is earnest instead of fun.
Although it borrows heavily from successful films like
Animal House
,
Old School
and
Legally Blonde
, ABC Family's new teen series
Greek
(9 tonight) fails to learn from their example.
Instead of grasping that those films' ability to mock the fraternity and sorority systems is what made them so enjoyable, the creators of Greek hold fast to a serious, largely uncritical view of the frat world, one so far from laughing at itself that it refuses to even crack a smile.
What's left is the familiar tale of Rusty (Jacob Zachar), a geeky freshman at the fictional Cyprus-Rhodes University, who decides after his first day (which includes a dismal engineering party) to rush a fraternity.
This throws him into the path of Evan (Jake McDorman), the pledge master of the uber-elite Omega Chi, and Cappie (Scott Michael Foster), president of the slacker house Kappa Tau.
Add to the mix Casey (Spencer Grammer), who is Rusty's sister, Evan's girlfriend, Cappie's ex, and, in real life, Kelsey Grammer's daughter. Casey is gunning for president of the Zeta Beta Zeta sorority, the most prestigious title on campus (and, in her mind, a stepping-stone to the White House).
Then there's Clark Duke as Rusty's "Christian hick" roommate, and Paul James as the token black and gay characters, conveniently collapsed into one. Blend vigorously and you have enough hackneyed drama to fill at least the first semester.
Producers Lloyd Segan and Shawn Pillar and writer Patrick Sean Smith bring to Greek the most annoying traits of their other ABC Family show, Wildfire.
While the babes are now co-eds instead of jockeys and the hot farmhands have become hot frat boys, they all still do stupid things for overly simplistic or entirely mystifying reasons.
Zachar infuses Rusty with an appropriate naivete, but he delivers his lines in the same monotone whether he's glibly justifying fraternities to his roommate or earnestly informing his sister that her boyfriend is cheating on her.
Grammer looks like a sorority girl, but her personality gets caught in a hazy middle-ground between Elle Woods' shallowness and the conniving of Election's Tracy Flick.
In fact, the only real standout is Foster, who brings actual depth to his role as the boy using his carefree, slacker persona to mask his vulnerability around his ex-girlfriend.
What the show needs is a character to stand outside the system, to point out at least some of its pomposity. That character should be Rusty, but - whoops! - he's rushing. Instead, all Greek offers is a predictable teenage soap opera set amongst the pretty people of fraternity row.
