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Campus Ladies Expelled From Oxygen After Sophomore Year
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Say goodbye to Joan Beamin and Barri Martin. After two seasons the genius programming execs at Oxygen have decided to cancel their best show (read: their only watchable show), Campus Ladies.
In the latest season the always amusing Campus Ladies had hit its stride with tighter yet more complex narrative arcs, funnier set-ups, a beefed up role for the already strong supporting cast of Amir Talai, Derek Carter and Miranda Kent, and a constant slew of hilarious celebrities in guest-starring roles including Sean Hayes as Barri's "special" boyfriend, Jeff Garlin as his well-meaning but condescending boss, Rob Corddry as a jealous magician, Megan Mullally as a touchy-feely guidance counselor and Janeane Garofalo as a disability rights activist.
With its signature mix of sight gags, bathroom humor and sly comic observations, Campus Ladies tackled a host of topics ranging from bikini waxing to date rape to mid-life sexual awakening to cramming for exams. Thanks to longtime comedy partners Christen Sussin as exuberant, un-embarrassable Barri and Carrie Aizley as uptight but always game Joan, it was the show's humanity that anchored its satire. Whatever situation this winningly earnest duo found themselves in, they confronted it with a dose of wit, sympathy and humor that's all too rare in situation comedy.
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Here's an idea for Oxygen: create a genuinely funny, relatable show like Campus Ladies and criminally under-promote it while throwing the weight of your meager hype machine behind Tori Spelling's thinly veiled attempts at self-aggrandizement (Just because she has a penchant for self-parody doesn’t mean she's NOT a shallow, tedious, fame whore).
Then there's the vile Bad Girls, a show that shamelessly traffics in every horrendous stereotype about women with so little self-awareness that you’d swear no one in the programming department at Oxygen had ever owned a mirror. It's particularly ironic for a network touting a fuzzy, commercialized form of female self-empowerment that a savvy satire like Campus Ladies was allowed to wither on the vine, while a sub-par reality show about a passel of shallow, skanky bitches vying to be the shallowest, skankiest bitch around has become Oxygen's most popular offering.
Hopefully Oxygen will at least be smart enough to release the two existing seasons of Campus Ladies on DVD complete with outtakes, commentaries and behind-the-scenes footage. So long Joan and Barri. I'll miss you.
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