BWW Recap: OMG! SELFIE Pilot Had Me LOLing!

Calling all members of Generation Y! Although the pilot has been online for a little while now, SELFIE officially premiered on ABC tonight, with some much needed edits. SELFIE, which is Lerner and Loewe's MY FAIR LADY (which was based off Bernard Shaw's PYGMALION) for the modern age, stars HAROLD and KUMAR and SLEEP HOLLOW's John Cho and DOCTOR WHO's Karen Gillan as an updated Henry Higgens and Eliza Dooley, respectively.

As the show opens, we find out that Eliza wasn't the most popular or good looking when she was in 7th grade. We see her horrendous school picture, fittingly accompanied by the Backstreet Boys' "Show Me the Meaning for Being Lonely" as she explains that she was voted "most butt" by her classmates. I know kids can be cruel, but "most butt" is pretty harsh. This serves as the catalyst for her taking a cue from the most popular girl in school to step up her looks. We then meet current day Eliza. The new Eliza has gorgeous red wavy hair, perfect makeup, manicured nails, you name it, and is obsessed with everything social media. On a business flight, Eliza gets upgraded to first class, which she has to announce to the rest of her coworkers. Because if other people don't know how great you are, what's the point? She goes to sit by Miller from legal, who unbeknownst to her, is married. While trying to come on to him, she notices a wedding ring tan (I don't know why they didn't just have him wearing a ring) and figures it out. Eliza then freaks out and ends up violently throwing up, thankfully in an air sickness bag. I don't care how attractive Karen Gillan is, I'd rather not watch her vomit, thank you very much. After completely filling two bags, Eliza makes her way to the bathroom but the bags break and her throw up gets all over her LBD and Louboutins. This wouldn't exactly have been my way of starting out a pilot. She locks herself in the bathroom until a flight attendant makes her go back to her seat. When Eliza steps out of the bathroom, we see she's made a new outfit out of some blankets. Eliza is completely humiliated when she sees all of her coworkers taking pictures and tweeting about her incident.

As Eliza makes her way back to her apartment, she realizes something about her 200,000+ social media friends...they aren't her real friends. No one will bring her ginger ale so she sits in the bathroom wallowing in her own sadness. This is where the plot starts rolling. At a business meeting next day, Eliza is hoping that everyone forgot about the situation on the plane...nope. Then we formally get introduced to John Cho's character, Henry. We met him earlier on the plane for a few seconds as he expresses disgust for Eliza's overuse of social media. He has just fixed a marketing problem by rebranding a flawed product. We also learn that Henry doesn't have a date to his boss's daughter's wedding...it seems as though he has a problem making connections too. Eliza then gets an idea. If he can rebrand a bad product, maybe he can rebrand her into a more respectable human being.

Henry is surprised to find Eliza in his office after the meeting. She explains her problem and asks him if he'll rebrand her. After some pity is thrown around, he reluctantly agrees. Henry makes it very clear that him helping Eliza is strictly professional. Yeah right! We then meet the greatest character of all, Charmonique, the bubbly receptionist. Henry has Eliza ask Charmonique something about herself as her first lesson. We find out that Charmonique's son kept her up the night before. Henry then asks her to be his date to the wedding and gives her strict instructions on how to dress. Eliza realizes that she doesn't have money to buy new clothes and all the clothes in her closet are too slutty. She then calls on the last person she ever thought she'd ask for help, Bryn - her Zooey-Deschanel lookalike neighbor who we met briefly earlier in the elevator with her bookclub. Bryn agrees to help her exclaiming, "you're lucky that makeunders are my everything." After an ukelele rendition of "Bad Romance," Eliza realizes what it must be like to have true friends. Henry comes to pick up Eliza and is surprised to find a modestly dressed, naturally beautiful girl when she opens the door. At the wedding, while the bride is reading her vows, Eliza is overcome with emotion. Not knowing what to do, she resorts to iPhone for support. Her phone makes noise resulting in the guests all looking back at her and embarrassing Henry. Due to Eliza's blatant disregard for Henry's "no phone" rule, they get into a fight. Eliza then gives up socializing and goes back to her phone, yet again, for comfort. However, after a genuine friendly moment with Charmonique, Eliza realizes Henry's lessons are working.

Eliza then goes to Henry's house and asks for another chance, confessing his plan is working and she needs him. Henry finally gives in after Eliza admits that, "all of my friends' names start with the at symbol, I get all my news from Buzzfeed, I have a negative Uber rating and I've never ever shown up for jury duty." Clearly touched by her honest, Henry shares some character flaws of his own. It seems as though Eliza is helping Henry just as much as Henry is helping Eliza. The two of them notice the REAL medium rainfall on roof with gentle overspill from gutters, which Henry says mocking a Eliza's earlier answer to what sooths her most. Eliza goes to take a selfie to which Henry exclaims, "you're getting it...but you are in fact missing it." This scene is so definitely my favorite in the entire episode because it's so beautifully acted by the pair and we finally get a deeper look at these two very exaggerated characters. To be fair, you have to start with an extreme so the change is noticeable. There is then a brief silence between the two, which clearly points to a future romance in my opinion. The episode ends as Eliza asks if Henry will help her "get it" to which he asks why she always has to make everything so sexual.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the pilot posted on ABC.com, I am very happy with the edits they made for the official airing. They toned down some of Eliza's characteristics and made her more into a person instead of a cardboard cutout. However, they can still cut down a little more on the abbreviations and references like the one to FROZEN. We get her character is addicted to social media and pop culture, we don't have to be reminded every 5 seconds. That being said, I really connected with Eliza. I'm sadly too addicted to my phone sometimes and I have tons of friends who are the same way. Which leads me to my favorite part about this show - although it's clearly a comedy, if you scratch the surface of this show, you'll see that underneath is a huge comment on society. Are we too obsessed with likes and favorites? Are we, in fact, missing out on life because we are watching it through a screen? This show definitely has me evaluating my connections and relationships with those around me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

What did you think of the pilot? Did you enjoy the online version more?? Will Henry succeed in rebranding Eliza? What do you think is in store for these characters? Sound off on Twitter and let me know! Also, keep watching SELFIE on ABC on Tuesday nights at 8/7c!

Photo Credit: Eric McCandless | ABC