First Impressions: Greek

A few years back ABC bought the rights to the FoxFamily cable station and obviously renamed it ABCFamily and started to show programs that are hard pressed to put in the category of family friendly including The Bachelor marathons as well as their most watched original program that started off the series with a naked dude. Not even Fox, the most morally corrupt network out there, pushed the boundaries the term family when they ran the network. Now their latest show looks to put their new slogan, “A new kind of family” to the test.

Greek follows freshman Rusty Cartwright (Jacob Zachar), a Freaks and Geeks extra, as he transverse college and his desire to join a fraternity. This doesn’t go over well with his sister Casey (Spenser Grammer) who is next in line to become her sorority’s president and failed to mention to any of her friends that she had a brother. Not too keen on his hopes to join a frat is his roommate Dale (Clark Duke), a religious southern who comes complete with a Confederate flag yet lacks a thick Jeff Foxworthy accent.

The rest of the cast if full with a bunch of actors you have never heard of including Casey’s current (Jake McDorman) and former (Scott Michael Foster) boyfriends who are in rival fraternities and both have interest in having Rusty and his new found friend and not your token black dude (wait for the end of the episode to see why) Calvin (Paul James) rush their respective frats. Although Lonelygirl15 herself Jessica Rose makes a blink and you’ll miss it cameo and yes Spenser’s dad is named Kelsey but luckily it looks like she takes after her mother more than her dad.

The pilot is a tail of shows, the first half being a witty fun look into college life, part Freaks and Geeks, part Undeclared (although not nearly as good as either) with plenty of laughs, the best being at the last house the potential pledges go to. The second half is bogged down with too much drama that gives you the formulaic plot line of should Casey stay with the upper-class douchebag or go back to the low-class douchebag. Um neither please.

Verdict: If the show can iron out the episode so it is evenly spreads out the comedy and drama and Greek will be a nice diversion this summer. Greek airs Mondays at 9:00 on ABCFamily and you can download the episodes after they air on iTunes (you can currently download the pilot for free).