Love, Inc. (TV series)

Premise

Set in New York City, the dating agency Love, Inc. features a staff of single friends desperately looking for love. Newly divorced Clea Lavoy, the founder and owner of the company, seeks out the help of her friend and employee Denise Johnson to reignite her romantic life. She struggles continually to find love despite Denise's best attempts. The future of the agency is jeopardized since its success relied on advertising Clea's "successful", nearly decade-long marriage. Love, Inc. also includes the receptionist Viviana, the style expert Francine, and the technician and photographer Barry.

Episodes typically depict the inner workings of the agency, such as their first experience with a lesbian client, a consultation with a former priest, and marketing strategies to appeal to geeks and agoraphobes. Hired as wingmen for their clients, the employees act as "guardian angels for the conversationally challenged". Each of the characters has various comedic and romantic adventures outside the agency, like Viviana's search for an eligible United States citizen to marry to secure a green card and Denise's inability to find true love despite her talent in matching her clients with their "seemingly unattainable soulmates".

Characters

The series features the following five main characters throughout its run:

Production

Love, Inc. was developed with the working title Wing Woman and promoted as a new 'Hitch'-esque comedy". The show's concept was based on an article in The New York Times that discussed dating services. Production was handled by Chase TV, the Littlefield Company, Burg/Koules Television, and Paramount Television. The Littlefield Company suggested that the show's creator, Andrew Secunda, collaborate with executive producer Adam Chase, who had previously worked on Friends. The series was Secunda's first experience creating a television sitcom. Marta Kauffman, Liz Tuccillo, Mark Burg and Oren Koules also contributed to the series as executive producers. On April 12, 2005, United Paramount Network (UPN) announced that Doherty was in talks for the lead role while Reagan Gomez-Preston was being considered for the role of the lead character's "longtime friend, co-worker and roommate" and Ion Overman for an unspecified part. Overman said that she was attracted to the part since she was searching for a job and viewed the series as a "very cool concept". On April 18, Holly Robinson Peete was confirmed to have joined the cast as Doherty's character's boss.

The series was originally designed as a star vehicle for Doherty, who portrayed Denise Johnson in the unaired pilot. Denise was Doherty's first role in a television sitcom. Doherty said that she loved the script for the pilot immediately, describing it as "hysterical", but felt intimidated by the role given her inexperience with comedy. The series was marketed initially as featuring Doherty and Peete, before UPN announced that it would pick up the show on the condition that Doherty was removed and the character was recast. According to TV Guide, Doherty was poorly received by preview audiences. When queried by an interviewer about Doherty's removal from the show, executive producer Warren Littlefield said the actress was "fabulous" in the role. According to him, Doherty wanted to change her negative reputation after leaving Beverly Hills, 90210 and Charmed by acting on the show. Peete praised her performance saying "we had so much fun and such a great vibe". UPN Entertainment's president cited the rationale behind Doherty's departure using the "standard going-in-a-different-direction reason". Rachel Cericola of TV Fodder listed Love, Inc. as one the "four promising sitcoms for the upcoming TV season" as a result of the behind the scenes drama involving Doherty's replacement.

UPN announced that Busy Philipps was cast as Denise on July 25, and was later billed as the show's star. According to Vince Vieluf, the casting change from Doherty to Philipps led to the series being retooled as an ensemble show featuring all the members of the agency rather than focusing on Denise. Vieluf said the alterations in the series' premise were due to concerns that "people would get tired of a show that was only about the mishaps of one person's love life". Page Kennedy reported that he was considered for a part on the show, but rejected it for the role of Caleb Applewhite on the second season of the ABC drama Desperate Housewives. Retired Los Angeles Lakers player Rick Fox guest starred in three episodes as David, one of Clea's love interests. The casting of racially diverse actors was identified with UPN's position as "the only network to actively program for an African American audience". Tim Good of the San Francisco Chronicle pointed to the show's casting as the only way in which it acts as a "positive reference". Even though the show was set in New York City, filming took place in the Bluhdorn Building at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, and used the multiple-camera format. Aaron Korsh wrote the nineteenth episode as freelance work. Each episode title, with the exception of the pilot, was taken from the names of past sitcoms. Transitions between scenes feature images of New York City set to contemporary music, such as The Black Eyed Peas' single "Don't Phunk with My Heart" and Kelis' single "Milkshake". Todd R. Ramlow of PopMatters described the music as a further attempt to appeal to "an 'urban', black-white audience," and praised it as a "nice try at crossover for a network whose shows usually target a black demographic".

Broadcast history

On August 6, 2005, UPN officially ordered thirteen episodes of the series. The network later ordered a full season of twenty-two episodes of the show on November 7, 2005, amid speculation that it would be canceled. In 2006, LivingTV broadcast the series in the United Kingdom, and it was broadcast by Nelonen in Sweden in 2008. UPN paired the series with Everybody Hates Chris, Eve, and Cuts to attract an "urban" audience. The network moved WWE SmackDown to Fridays in favor of scheduling Thursdays as focused on sitcoms. This decision was made to establish a "night of scripted programming" and to attract more advertising from film studios to promote upcoming releases. Today questioned the network's belief that Love, Inc. and Everybody Hates Chris would appeal to the same viewership, and noted the difference in quality between the two, with Love, Inc. cited as the inferior show. While the series retained 59% of the audience from Everybody Hates Chris initially, this marketing strategy proved unsuccessful when it lost a majority of the viewership in later episodes.

Cericola reported that Love, Inc. earned an average of 3.6 million viewers per episode and an article in The Hollywood Reporter stated that the series garnered an average of 1.0/3 Nielsen rating/share in the 18–49 demographic. It ranked 141st among broadcast television networks in the 2005–2006 television season. According to the Nielsen Company, the show achieved high ratings among "Latina adolescents Ages 12–17" and earned 3.4 million viewers in that demographic in 2005. It ranked above two other UPN sitcoms: One on One and Half & Half for Latin women in the 12–17 age demographic, and in "the top half of all UPN series" for total viewership. The series premiere saw a 6% increase in the 18–49 age range, 53% in women between 18 and 34, and 118% in women between 18 and 49 from the show that aired in the same time period during the previous television season.

The show, as well as a majority of UPN's programs, were officially canceled as a result of the network's merger with the WB Television Network (the WB) to form the CW in 2006. Fern Gillespie of The Crisis was critical of UPN's decision to cancel the series given how the network "in one swoop, wiped out five of its eight African American comedies" for the creation of the CW. Gillespie expressed disappointment at the lack of African American sitcoms on the three major networks saying: "Without that opportunity for some of the younger artists to hone and develop their skills, it will potentially have a generational impact." Critic Tim Goodman identified Love, Inc. as one of six shows "geared for an African American audience" and featuring "an African American lead actress" that were canceled during the merger. He equated these cancellations as a sign of networks "eliminat[ing] niche programming". The series has not been made available on Blu-ray or DVD.

Critical response

Love, Inc. received mixed critical feedback when it was first broadcast. Ebony's Zondra Hughes included the show in its list of promising prime-time television shows featuring African-American actors, and identified Peete and Overman as its primary "star appeal". While reviewing its broadcast on LivingTV, a reviewer from Daily Record listed the show as its "pick of the day" and suggested it for viewers who "fancy a giggle". Diane Werts of Newsday found the characters to be "vibrantly well-defined" and the writing "smart, with a light touch". Peete received a nomination for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series in the 37th NAACP Image Awards, but lost to Tichina Arnold who starred in Everybody Hates Chris.

Metacritic assigned a score of 28 out of 100 based on aggregate of 17 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". The Futon Critic's Brian Ford Sullivan praised Vieluf as the standout despite his limited role, but felt the execution of the matchmaking premise was inferior to that done in the 2005 film Hitch. The series was described as having "a quirky vibe, personable cast and snappy writing" by Variety's Laura Fries, but she felt the storylines and characters required more original material. Although they commended the show for its multi-ethnic cast, Jon Bonné and Gael Fashingbauer Cooper of Today wrote that it "struggles to salvage some screechingly bad jokes". Paul Brownfield of the Los Angeles Times criticized the series for being "unintentionally unfunny", comparing it to the fictional sitcom Room and Bored featured in the HBO comedy-drama The Comeback. The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan called the series a "grating comedy ... destined to be a footnote in history as the show that premiered after Everybody Hates Chris, and most likely faded shortly thereafter".

Critics responded negatively to the character of Denise and Philipps' performance, citing both as annoying and unsympathetic. Heffernan found that Denise lacked the charm and charisma of Cher Horowitz from the 1995 film Clueless. USA Today's Robert Bianco gave the series a half of a point out of four, and summarized Philipps' performance as "constant motion; her face contorting, body twitching, voice braying" that transformed the show into something "truly unbearable". Citing the series as a "one-joke affair", Matthew GIlbert of The Boston Globe wrote that the premise behind Denise had the "same irony that failed to make Alicia Silverstone's Miss Match very interesting". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Rob Owen favored Doherty's portrayal of the character, which he described as "brimming with self-confidence," and characterized Philipps' Denise as a "dizzyingly neurotic nutcase". Ramlow asserted that the show's female characters were "needy and desperate" and "one-shtick ponies" in comparison to those from Sex and the City.