The leftist outlet CNN just gave a new drama series - that was inspired by failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton - a big thumbs down.
The thumbs down came from CNN's Brian Lowry.
He published a piece criticizing the series on Wednesday, March 13. The piece is titled, Journalism could use a smart show about reporting. "The Girls on the Bus" isn't it.
This has to be particularly humiliating for Clinton. Before we get to what Lowry had to say about the series, we'll get you up to speed regarding what it is about.
The series comes from Max, and it was adapted from former New York Times reporter Amy Chozick's memoir about Clinton 2016 presidential campaign.
Here is Max's billing of the series:
Four female journalists find friendship, love, and scandal as they follow a parade of flawed candidates in an unpredictable presidential campaign.
Chozick, in her memoir, decided not to make it specifically about Hillary Clinton.
She explains:
I felt, just as a writer, fatigue in writing about real life. I think the country feels fatigue....[Also] politics is dark and divisive. And I think our show is a light dramedy....I almost want it to be an escape. That was sort of our goal; this alternate reality that is fun, light, kind of escapist.
That being said, there is no doubt about the fact that the series is inspired by Clinton's failed 2016 presidential run.
According to Lowry, The Girls On The Bus is, "at best, a frothy soap opera" and, at worst, "an ethical twilight zone.”
Lowry writes that the series, "As very, very loosely adapted for TV by Chozick and Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries), working with another CW veteran in producer Greg Berlanti, Girls on the Bus devolves into a CW-style drama that occasionally addresses the slow death of journalism on the most perfunctory level."
He adds, "At a moment when journalism would benefit from any kind of morale lift, the last thing it needs is another broadly drawn series that seems to put a spotlight on the profession’s principles before backing over them."
Lowry is not the only leftist to criticize the series. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have done so as well.
Variety, for example, writes, "Its frequent silliness feels inappropriate, while its occasional grandstanding comes off as entirely out of its depth," while The Hollywood Reporter takes issue with the series' "cheesy romance, clunky drama, and predictable twists and turns."
