The title of Bebo’s new co-production with Channel X, Chelsey OMG, isn’t just a clever use of Internet slang: Chelsey Pucks really does say “oh my god” a lot (though it tends to come out more as “ohmigod”). The comedy series, which meshes Borat-style situational improv with your standard teen drama plot points, is an American girl’s story of working in London and exploring Europe, armed with nothing but a pretty smile and an intensely positive vibe — which is almost, but not quite, enough to make it through the day.
The show is largely structured around set pieces in which Chelsey is let loose to improvise with locals — in the second episode, she asks a bodega shopkeeper if he stocks Abercrombie & Fitch, then proceeds to dig around in the back of the store until she finds a football jersey to her liking — along with a subplot about Chelsey’s efforts to fit in at her new marketing job. Two episodes a week are set to debut on the character’s Bebo page, along with interstitials in which Chelsey shares “what she’s thinking” — vlog-style posts that showcase the actress’s ability to talk very, very fast.
An intensely character-driven concept, Chelsey lives or dies by its star, actress Kelly-Anne Lyons, whose full-on commitment to the Chelsey persona means some slightly grating moments but an overall likable performance. Early press materials implicitly referred to Chelsey as a Hills refugee (though her accent is less Laguna Beach and more old-timey Valley Girl), but what separates the character from more shallow prototypes is Lyons’ energy and good-natured approach to the character. The major difference between Chelsey and the teen girl prototype she’s emulating is that she’s excited to explore a new culture and make new friends — and unafraid to make mistakes in the process. She’s the exact opposite of closed-off or snobbish, and it’s that attitude that makes her so engaging.
Jim Reid, director of production company Channel X, cites the choice of an American teenager as protagonist as a natural one for the largely British Bebo crowd, given that, “for our teen audience, all their favorite programs are American anyway, so they know this girl.” While the premise of an American girl in London would seem to have appeal to both Americans and Londoners, a lot of the comedy does tend to play better depending on your familiarity with British culture — one joke in the second episode, for example, does demand that the audience have some familiarity with Premiere league football teams, which is not exactly a topic of common knowledge outside of the UK. But there’s no denying that the fish-out-of-water premise has huge comedic potential, especially since cultural differences make for extremely believable and hilarious scenarios. I’m a big Anglophile who’s seen enough British television to claim a solid familiarity with the slang, but even I, during my last stay abroad, had an extremely embarrassing exchange thanks to the different meaning of “pants” in the U.S. and UK vernacular. So it’s easy to identify with poor Chelsey when, in the first episode, she mistakes the curse “bollocks” as a term of farewell.
Whether you like the series is entirely dependent on whether or not you like Chelsey, and while the first episode starts off on a pretty brash note, as the character becomes more distinct from Buffy, Cher, and her other forbearers, she’ll only become more likeable. No telling if the OMGs will be dialed down significantly, though.
