Don't Trust the B

Dreama Walker and Krysten Ritter in Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23.

Photo credit: ABC via Facebook

Actress Krysten Ritter steals the show as the title character in Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, a new and engaging ABC comedy about a woman who pretty much does as she pleases. Ritter's character, Chloe, has no qualms about ripping off her new, naïve roommate or using her womanly wiles in an attempt to get what she wants out of people. Ritter is no stranger to the role of mean-but-funny gal (see: She's Out of My League), and her stinging lines and shocking antics help make for a fun and whimsical show worth watching.

Ritter is joined by a promising cast. James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame plays a fictionalized version of himself and Chloe's best friend. Dawson's Creek was, so far, the peak of Beek's fame, and everyone knows it. The script calls for the actors to do things such as make plays on the words Beek and Creek. We even briefly hear that show's theme song, Paula Cole's I Don't Want to Wait. Beek -- the real one -- seems to take it all in stride.

Dreama Walker plays Chloe's new roommate, June. June has just moved to New York City and her prospects are bright, but her dream is soon cut short. She arrives to her new job for her first day of work and encounters chaos: a company boss is being arrested for a financial crime and employees are looting and leaving. In despair, she goes in search of a new place to live (her company-owned would-be apartment was seized by authorities), and comes across sweet-seeming Chloe. Walker's character mostly reacts to everything around her in this episode, but the actress does well with the material she's given.

An honorable mention must go to the actors who play June's parents, whose screen time in this episode is short but memorable. Not knowing about the mess in which their daughter has found herself, they rave about their little investment (they paid for her schooling) making it big in New York City, which makes June's situation all the more mortifying for her.

In the end, though, it is Chloe who does June a huge favor. She purposely begins to seduce June's cheating fiancé -- on June's birthday cake -- to help her realize that the man upon whom she set her hopes and dreams was, in reality, a douche.

The show is off to a great start, thanks to a fun plot, witty dialogue and likeable characters. But Ritter's nasty Chloe is the center of the show, and rightfully so. You wouldn't want to live with the b---- in Apartment 23, but you want her to keep doing what she does.

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