{"id":2749,"date":"2025-09-16T16:49:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T16:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/16\/about-a-boy-life-unexpected-and-more-hidden-gems\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T16:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T16:49:11","slug":"about-a-boy-life-unexpected-and-more-hidden-gems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/09\/16\/about-a-boy-life-unexpected-and-more-hidden-gems\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018About a Boy,\u2019 \u2018Life, Unexpected\u2019 and more hidden gems"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>To say I watched a lot of TV growing up would be an understatement. I had a great childhood parked in front of the cable box watching shows I was far too young for. I think by now I\u2019ve seen just about every TV show ever made (only a slight exaggeration), yet the ones from that era still hold a special place in my heart.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It hurts to see them forgotten, especially the ones that barely got to stay on the air long enough to learn to fly. Some of these 2010s masterpieces have become cult classics precisely because of how short-lived they were \u2014 but that\u2019s the best-case scenario. More often than not, they simply lived short lives and faded into oblivion.<\/p>\n<p>Well, today I\u2019m throwing them a rope and walking into the sunset with them, and you should take notes; these are gems, people.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n<p><strong>\u201cDon\u2019t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23\u201d<\/strong> <\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Ah, how I love New York sitcoms about clueless 20-somethings. I wouldn\u2019t exactly call the main characters of \u201cDon\u2019t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23\u201d <em>friends<\/em>, per se \u2014 they\u2019re more like vulgar scammers trying to take advantage of a na\u00efve midwestern overachiever and getting stuck living with her. Frenemies, you might call them.<\/p>\n<p>Chloe (Krysten Ritter, \u201cJessica Jones\u201d) \u2014 the, well, you know, in Apartment 23 \u2014 runs a roommate scam to help poor small-town girls realize they\u2019re better off away from the big bad city. It\u2019s charity, really. June (Dreama Walker, \u201cPooling to Paradise\u201d) is the first to grow some teeth instead of running back home with her tail between her legs. They\u2019re baby teeth, sure, but they bite all the same. And every episode, they get a little sharper with a not-so-gentle nudge from Chloe and Chloe\u2019s best friend, actor James Van Der Beek (\u201cDawson\u2019s Creek\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The quick comedy of the show was ahead of its time, which is why this might be the biggest cult sitcom on the list. In just two seasons, it showcased a more edgy side in casting a secondary protagonist as certifiably cold-hearted as Chloe. Ritter\u2019s performance teeters on over-the-top (Chloe\u2019s drunken messiness knows no bounds), but she always pulls back enough to make you see the human side of her. And while it\u2019s nice to want to think like June, the eternal optimist, there\u2019s something delicious about sinking into the wicked ways of a party girl like Chloe.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cAbout a Boy\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not to be confused with the 2002 Hugh Grant movie \u201cAbout a Boy\u201d \u2014 but the two are awfully close. (And, if we\u2019re comparing them like the US-UK \u201cThe Office\u201d rivalry, the Americans did it better).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Rich, unemployed and womanizing, Will (David Walton, \u201cNew Girl\u201d) has got it pretty good \u2014 but it gets better when an annoying single mom moves in next door with her 11-year-old son Marcus (Benjamin Stockham, \u201c9-1-1: Lone Star\u201d). Marcus is what many (including the bullies at school) might call a \u201cmama\u2019s boy,\u201d which is embarrassing even when your mom is played by the legendary Minnie Driver (\u201cThe Witcher: Blood Origin\u201d). Will wants nothing to do with this sweater-wearing, vegan-eating, drum-circle-starting family \u2014 until he realizes Marcus can help him impress a woman by pretending he is Will\u2019s son.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Some things you may expect: Marcus spends all 33 episodes teaching Will how to be more emotionally vulnerable, and Will spends that time teaching Marcus how to be his own man. The show curates a carefully heartfelt tone, but that doesn\u2019t mean its datedness doesn\u2019t rear its ugly head every once in a while (i.e. womanizing). Still, it\u2019s nothing as weird as Mr. Shue\u2019s (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bustle.com\/entertainment\/why-tiktok-hates-matthew-morrison-meme-explained-grinch-glee\">Trigger Warning<\/a>) (Matthew Morrison, \u201cChristmas Waltz\u201d) only friends on \u201cGlee\u201d being a gaggle of high schoolers \u2014 mainly because the Will in \u201cAbout a Boy\u201d is actually self-aware.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The pair is endearing, and the show doesn\u2019t waste time on the other things you might expect: Will and Marcus\u2019s mom never get together. And, thank God for that. Their friendship and back-and-forth insults keep the show fresh \u2014 a second heart to beat next to the primary dynamic duo. This show doesn\u2019t get nearly enough love, so start sending your flowers as you binge the whole thing in a weekend (before exams start kicking your ass, that is).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cLife Unexpected\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the early 2010s, every project was Britt Robertson\u2019s (\u201cLittle Fires Everywhere\u201d) \u201cbig break.\u201d She deserves all the roses that have just missed her arms, starting with praise for her series lead debut.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cLife Unexpected\u201d is the one teen drama that I can honestly say has an original premise. We follow Lux Cassidy (Robertson) as she tries to emancipate herself from the foster care system she\u2019s had to endure all her life. But in the process, she finds her biological father, a bar owner stuck in arrested development named Baze (Kristoffer Polaha, \u201cMystery 101\u201d), and biological mother, a radio personality named Cate (Shiri Appleby, \u201cRoswell\u201d) who wants nothing to do with him. As fate (or a family court judge) would have it, the two end up with custody of Lux and have to figure this whole family thing out.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You can imagine the drama: Baze is angry that Cate never told him about the baby, Cate is distraught to find out that her daughter has had such a hard life and Lux is just trying to get away from them both. Makes for some really great television \u2014 a couple seasons of it, at least.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been trying to put my finger on why this show has stuck with me, and I think it comes down to the atmosphere. While Portland, Oregon might not be everyone\u2019s idea of an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.atlasobscura.com\/things-to-do\/portland-oregon\/places?page=1\">ideal city<\/a>, its presentation on the show is cozy yet busy. It immerses you into a controlled chaos \u2014\u00a0an aestheticized angst that you can always rely on to give you a soft place to land at the end of the day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n<p>These are the things I love about this era of television: The shows are such a product of their time, yet still find ways to get ahead of it. They\u2019re allowed to play within the confines of their box, and because of that, get to bang up against every edge of it. They\u2019re not cookie-cutter; that\u2019s hard to come by these days. Without audiences trying to preserve treasures like these, they\u2019ll all eventually fall into the pit of lost media. I\u2019m not ready to see that happen to these shows just yet.<\/p>\n<p><em>Daily Arts Writer Mina Tobya can be reached at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/tv\/a-stroll-down-memory-lane-forgotten-2010s-tv-shows-worth-a-second-look\/mailto:mtobya@umich.edu\"><em>mtobya@umich.edu<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-4    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To say I watched a lot of TV growing up would be an understatement. I had a great childhood parked in front of the cable box watching shows I was far too young for. I think by now I\u2019ve seen just about every TV show ever made (only a slight exaggeration), yet the ones from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[558,1275,1274,754,2915],"class_list":{"0":"post-2749","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-boy","9":"tag-gems","10":"tag-hidden","11":"tag-life","12":"tag-unexpected"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2751,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions\/2751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}