What do you get when you take Two Guys, A Girl, And A Pizza Place and get rid of the Pizza Place? Two Guys and a Girl.

What do you get when you take Two Guys and a Girl and add two more girls and a guy? Two Guys and a Girl still.

The biggest strength and weakness of the Two Guys and a Girl (and a Pizza Place) television show is in its name. Television shows rarely change their name midway through because doing so is confusing and typically bad for ratings*. In the case of this series it was emblematic of a larger problem in that the show did not know what it was about. It originally set itself up as a cross between Friends and Cheers but found the former element worth keeping and by the end of the second season everyone who worked at the pizza joint quit. Then, finding a three-person cast to be a bit light, they kept adding them one at a time until they numbered six.

But what I really enjoyed most about the show comes right back down to the name and the name change. It was a rare experience of a television show that simply evolved of its own accord. Most of the time when changes rock a television show it’s to resurrect sagging ratings. They’ll add another cute kid or two characters that have been playing footsie since the show’s inception will end up getting together. These changes usually come after long periods of stasis. Two Guys and a Girl, on the other hand, continued to evolve on its own accord. They didn’t implant star-power** or a cute kid but rather humorous and interesting characters for the existing characters to interact with.

If you don’t like sitcoms this is not the show for you. It never stops striding for a laugh at the expense of realism and character empathy. Even when I wasn’t laughing at the joke I had fun watching them all try. In fact, the show was at its weakest when it was trying to get me to care about the characters. It succeeded, but only just. They honestly could have skipped most of the scenes where those characters that get together do so and I’m not sure anything substantial would have been lost. To an extent I think the writers knew this because they narrowly dodged climatic confrontations wherein characters express their undying love in a way that you don’t want to laugh at them.

If you didn’t like Friends because it was too unrealistic, you’ll hate this show. If you didn’t like Friends because it was too self-important, you might want to give it a shot if you haven’t already. It is on the WE network in reruns, or was last I checked.

* The only other TV show with a name change that I can recall was Valerie, which was renamed The Hogan Family when Valerie Harper left the show.

** There are only two examples. Tiffani Thiessen of Saved By The Bell fame was on for a little while, but she wasn’t a regular castmember or a Heather Locklear “special guest”***. She was simply there. The other is some Boston Red Sox shortstop that actually made a couple of appearances as himself dating one of the show’s regulars.

*** – Heather Locklear was billed as a “special guest” for something like eight seasons on Melrose Place. Most regular castmembers weren’t around as long as she was.