Fly Girls" is supposed to be a reality show. And yet, somehow, it manages to feel less real than the vast majority of scripted programs on television.
Fake. Phony. Counterfeit.
And, worst of all, a complete bore.
The "Fly Girls" (Wednesday, 8 p.m., CW/Ch. 30) are Virgin America flight attendants. While it's difficult to imagine that most airlines would approve of a stupid show like this, Virgin America and its owner, Richard Branson, are all about self-promotion.
As the series opens, four flight attendants — Mandalay ("Mandy"), Tasha, Farrah and Louise — are getting ready to welcome a new housemate to "the crash pad," the Marina Del Rey beach house they share.
They're all pretty much concerned about themselves. Except for Tasha, who's also worried about her 10-year-old son. Sort of.
He spends most of his time with his father (to whom she was never married) because Tasha travels so much. But she does Skype with him.
"So I'll actually see you, I dunno when. Two days, three days," Tasha says, quickly blowing any chance she has of becoming mother of the year.
"Being away from him so long, you know, it gets to me. I'll get over it," she says with a sigh.
Like every other word that comes out of everyone's mouth on "Fly Girls," that statement sounds like it's the third or fourth take. Because none of these women is a good enough actress to get it right on the first take.
The fifth flight attendant in this equation, Nikole, is the rhymes-with-witch. Not only is there no clear reason why she's allowed to move in, but given that she instantly makes two of the other women hate her there's no clear reason why they don't kick her out.
Except that this is a TV show, and TV shows need conflict.
Oh, did I mention that one of the producers of "Fly Girls" comes to us by way of "The Hills" — a show that is clearly (badly) scripted.
That's not an opinion. That's what various "Hills" cast members have admitted over the years.
"Fly Girls" labors ever so hard to make us believe that working as a flight attendant for Virgin America is an incredibly exciting job. That it's filled with glamour and perks.
Ooooh, if you're really lucky, you might land an IFB — an in-flight boyfriend.
"It's a cute guy that you scope out to help the time fly," Louise says.
He might even flirt with you and ask you out — even though he's clearly performing badly written lines.
("Enjoying yourself there? Working hard?")
He might even invite you to a cocktail party. Where he might turn out to be a jerk.
We see the women at a couple of celebrity events in the first couple of episodes. But they are the hired help. And be assured that the hired help at events like this are not even noticed by celebrities.
To be fair, it's not really the fault of the "Fly Girls" that they come across as such fakes. Nobody could pull off saying, "When you're on a firetruck with Richard Branson. this is the coveted position at this event. And I'm so excited," as Mandy is forced to say.
But that doesn't seem as fake as Mandy's "big fight" with Nikole, which plays like bad community theater.
These are the kind of shallow phonies we go out of our way to avoid in real life. Why would anyone think that watching them on TV would be entertaining?
It's not.
e-mail: pierce@desnews.com