Salem Rogers Series Premiere Review: “Pilot” (Season 1, Episode 1)

The pilot’s plot is tight and focused, if predictable, but serves as the springboard for a slew of truly funny gags. From Salem attempting to hide her laughter when Agatha’s outfit looks exactly like one in the window of an elderly woman’s clothing store, to Agatha asking a group of young models, “Hello. Hi. Who hurt you?”, to Leslie Bibb’s wonderfully bitchy turn as the titular hero. She’s stuck-up and egotistical with practically no hints of humanity anywhere to be found in the series’ first episode.

All the same, she’s endearing in her hate and humorous in her cruelty. In one moment she’s strutting her stuff in front a group of impossibly young models, attempting to show she’s still got it. And then five minutes later, she’s wafting a fart out from under her thigh-length, skin-tight, all-white dress, all smiles while confessing to Agatha, “Slim Jims.”

Bibb has played characters cut from Salem’s cloth for years, but given time to shine as a show’s leading woman proves her star-power. She works pretty great with Rachel Dratch’s Agatha, a sort of predictable yin-and-yang odd-couple pairing that still manages to find humor and an ever so-slightly, teeny-tiny, bit of heart. Most of this is probably due to director Mark Waters, of Mean Girls fame, a vet of wading through the murky waters of claw-filled female friendships. First-time writer and long-time actress Lindsey Stoddart provides the beating heart of the jokes at work in the premiere. Sometimes she nails it – “I am a life coach and published self-help author.” “Yes, well help yourself to some concealer.” – and sometimes not, particularly with a running joke about a taser.

“This is the kind of thing Aggie Boyle would call ‘mistake-irific’,” Agatha asserts to Salem after a disastrous runway show at a mall. “It means something you think is awful, turns out to be wonderful.” While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Salem Roger‘s pilot “wonderful,” I would say it’s pretty damn good. There’s a clever flash-forward that opens and closes the premiere that hooked me into wanting to find out more, and most of the main cast – though Bibb tends to run over Dratch, who’s a bit less suited for the inherently edgy material – is all energetically game, making this a very enjoyable watch.

Right on, tampon.