[Review] Single Ladies

In many comedies centered around single women, the plot is focused on when and how they will meet their perfect man. They have a perfect job, house and friends, but their life will always be lacking until that fantasy of a man bumps into them on the subway and realises that she’s the one he’s been looking for all of his life. Thankfully, this isn’t the case for the two single ladies who star in the new web series ‘Single Ladies’, which will be streaming on Hyvio by the end of July. This review contains mild spoilers, so if you’re planning on watching this show anytime soon, please skip this article. 

It was funny. I laughed a lot for a series that only lasted 48 minutes, and I’d be interested to see what the creators could do with more time. My favourite episode occurred when the power went out at the radio station where the women were working. Nina suggested that it could have been a former 'friends with benefits' of hers who died while having sex with her, who supposedly haunts the station. “He didn’t get to cum, and now he’s taking it out on me.” 

The dialogue was well-written, realistic, and funny. 

The series also never focused on the lady’s lack of fulfillment because they weren’t in relationships, and they were always portrayed as strong and positive single women. 

The episodes were each eight minutes, on the longer side for a web series. However, they still didn’t manage to fully explore the number of themes that ‘Single Ladies’ tries to. The show didn’t express anything that felt new to me. The themes of sex, friendships and relationships were touched upon only briefly. One understated moment that I really enjoyed was when Nina and Catherine managed to cause a pair of misogynistic presenters to go on a verbal tirade against them, live on air. This was one of the few ideas that I felt they managed to portray in a satisfactory way. They let it play out until the scene came to a natural conclusion, instead of just moving onto the next joke. It was still humorous, but also more satisfying. 

There were a number of scenes that fell flat, because the series tried to use shock value on a subject that wasn’t that shocking. However, for a series about sex, it was surprisingly tame. 

When compared with ‘Broad City’, another web series with very similar themes, it’s hard not to notice the lack of focus in the episodes. The plot was scattered, and although this was helpful was telling jokes, it wasn’t coherent.  

All in all, this was a decent first attempt at a web series, and I recommend it if you want an easy laugh, high production value, and good acting. While the plot was slightly unfocused and the themes weren’t fully explored, I enjoyed watching the web series, and would recommend it to any single ladies out there. Let’s hope a season two is in the works.

Brooke Heenan

(DISCLAIMER - METIOR received free tickets to this event)