FLY GIRLS Review : the Catty Sorority in the Air is Mostly Unappealing

The 'Fly Girls' crew: From l., Tasha, Louise, Mandy, Nikole and Farrah, flight attendants for Virgin America and stars of the CW reality show. PH: Michael Desmond

Here’s the good news for THE CW: Fly Girls is an exceptionally better show than High Society. The downside to that would be, well – High Society is pretty much the worst TV show I’ve ever seen. People love Flight Attendants (FA). If you’ve been watching How I Met Your Mother this season (and if you haven’t – whaaat?), you know that Barney called them one of the sexiest jobs at one point (sorry, you’ve been demoted!). They’re a sexual fantasy for some people, and other people see it as the ‘carefree’ job they’d kill to have because they want to get away from where they are. It seems glamorous. What I believe it probably is, is interesting. Whatever you want to call it, people want to know about FA.

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That much is clear when you see that a Flight Attendant named Heather Poole has become famous (kind of an accidental reality star of twitter/the blogosphere) for being able to write about her life as a FA. She has a blog (of course) and a twitter account with over 18,000 people following her. People want to know things, and she answers them professionally. For instasnce, someone asked about how many times her uniform has changed over the years and if the hems got longer or shorter – the answer “3 uniforms in 15yrs – longer”. She seems like one of the smart FA’s you’d be lucky to have on a plane with you.

I feel pretty sympathetic for all FA’s with this new show Fly Girls now airing. It doesn’t make them look exceptionally good. The thing is, because I knew it was going to be an epic failure of a show I was able to almost enjoy it as a guilty pleasure. The show is ridiculously scripted and produced to be scintillating. In just one episode it managed to degrade Virgin airlines, seem eerily sexist, and be unbelievably unrealistic. If it was more realistic (as you hope reality shows would strive to be) it might actually be enjoyable.

GRADE: C+ I’d watch it if I was sick and needed fluff TV while I ate my soup. It’s like a daytime soap opera.