My “Playing House”-Related Plea to USA Network

I am not known for my patience, but I have been a stoically patient lady waiting for the announcement of a Season 2 pickup for USA Network’s comedy, Playing House. I have gotten to a point of impatience where I can no longer stay quiet.

TV hates me.

It must. For the first time in years, a network presents a show that perfectly encapsulates my life, my desires and my TV wants and then after dangling a few episodes of perfection in front of me and likeminded viewers, it withholds the very TV manna that I have come to crave. Of course, I am talking about Playing House on USA Network. How is it that the brightest TV watchers in the world can’t demand one measly half hour of quality TV? TV is a wasteland of vampires, and comic book characters, can’t USA Network cobble out a half hour of great scripted TV? I thought that USA was the perfect home for Playing House; it’s a network that has long supported quirky, funny shows, yet it’s turning its back on viewers by its failure to renew a program that is universally adored. USA can present sexy dramas like Satisfaction and Rush in addition to the funny stuff. I promise it can be done and we’ll still watch it all.

I watch TV for a living and I freely admit that I am amongst the world’s luckiest people. But most of the TV that I watch isn’t stuff that I would watch if it weren’t my job. I would not sit through True Tori if it wasn’t a train wreck that makes for a great story and Dating Naked wouldn’t be on my DVR, but Playing House was a show that both my husband and I genuinely looked forward to watching. The writing is whip-smart, the actors are amongst the brightest on TV and for the first time in a long time, we felt like TV was being made for us. Smart, suburban, well educated people — who enjoy laughing. I don’t know, I thought advertisers would flock wherever groups of thirty something’s eyeballs congregate. We’re prime bait for commercials for family vacations, laundry detergents and tampons. Disney and Proctor and Gamble should be rabidly beating upon the doors at USA to advertise during Playing House.

Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair could be my best friends. When I interviewed them before the premiere of Playing House, the first thing out of Lennon’s mouths was, “Kellie, I just found a thong in the pocket of my jeans and I have no idea how it got there.” I knew we were meant to be friends. They’re like the cool pretty girls that inexplicably still want to hang out with you even though you show up for girl’s night out in sweat pants. In my imaginary world, we’d be a group of friends who sit on a patio drinking wine and laughing like we were straight out of a birth control commercial. You know the one I’m talking about, the one for Yazz.

I don’t think I have ever laughed as much while watching TV as I did during Playing House. And I cried too. And I giggle-cried — although that’s perhaps not exactly right — I did more of a cackle-cry, because if you’ve ever heard me laugh, I sound like a cartoon witch. But I cackle unabashedly when watching Playing House.

So here’s my plea. If you like funny TV, really funny TV, not just “hmm, that was amusing” TV, I’m talking laugh so much you pee just a little TV, then watch Playing House. It’s probably onDemand or online. Watch it. Then tweet about it. Tell your friends about it. Make them watch it. (My friends know that if they don’t watch Playing House, we can no longer be friends.) Then retweet other people’s tweets about it. Especially mine; because why not?

Because we’re fighting a war. But we’re not the Beastie Boys fighting for our right to party; we’re fighting for our right to good TV.

And Playing House is better than good TV, it’s great. And TV fans deserve a second season of greatness.