Franklin & Bash (Season 2)

Starring: Breckin Meyer, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Dana Davis, Garcelle Beauvais, Kumail Nanjani, Malcolm McDowell, Reed Diamond

Creator: Kevin Falls and Bill Chais

Genre: Comedy, Legal Drama

Rating: B

I wasn’t as much of a fan of this season of Franklin and Bash as I was the first.  While it’s still a great buddy lawyer type show and still maintains the hijinks that I enjoyed in the first season – and continues on with the awesome guest stars, stepping it up in a great way by having Jane Seymour (who I love) play Peter (Gosselaar)’s mother – it’s starting to lose a bit of the charm, at least for me.  There’s a line between childish immaturity and fun, and I’m not exactly sure which side of it F and B are on.

This season shows us… well, Franklin (Meyer) remains short with daddy issues, Bash remains tall with ex-girlfriend issues, Pindar (Nanjiani) is working on not being a shut in with a gazillion phobias, Infeld (McDowell) is an excentric old guy with too much money, Karp (Diamond) is a douche, and Hanna (Beauvais)… actually, I’m really not sure what’s going on with Hanna.  I think my problem with the show could really be surmised by her in general: sometimes she seems to be on the side of Franklin and Bash, other times she’s with Karp in the quest to have them removed.  To be honest, I really don’t get the quest in itself anymore.  The two of them have had plenty of opportunities to prove themselves and despite their questionable antics have done so rather successfully; it really just seems like the show writers have given Karp this bone and let him chew on it incessantly.  It’s boring – if you’re going to make a character semi-villainous, give him a reason for being so.  As for Hanna… well, in general, I really have no clue what her motivation is.  During the first season she seemed to go back and forth on the issue for no apparent reason, during this second season she’s all anti-Franklin and Bash but her motivation is never revealed.

This stagnation is the shows problem in general.  While I understand it’s trying to be more episodic than serial the complete lack of any overarching plot is a disability for the show, as is the complete inconsistency in it.  The feelings of the characters seem to only really serve the plot-of-the-week, which gets annoying very quickly.  Franklin’s daddy issues only really come out when his father’s appearing in an episode, Bash’s feelings for Janie (Claire Coffee) only come out when she’s appearing – the rest of the time he’s really a bit of a pig when it comes to women, as is his counterpart.  The show in general feels almost like it should be a sitcom, but for some reason it isn’t.  From this side of season two, I’m not entirely sure if I care enough about the show anymore to watch season three… I guess we’ll have to wait and see how I feel about it all next summer.