What I’m Watching: Ben and Kate

Ben and Kate: Season 1, Episode 7 “Career Day” (B+)

Here we have an instance of several plotlines that were generally uninventive and recognizable that worked quite well thanks to the efforts of the cast. Career day is a phenomenon that seems to occur more in the cinematic universe than it does in real life, inspiring characters to consider drastic life changes in order to impress young children. I’m always amused by Ben and Tommy’s business ideas, and I liked the quick summary of failed previous inventions. Their door-to-door wine idea wasn’t bad, but it seems that the sex game played by one couple got in the way of that a bit. Ben’s end-of-episode classroom talk was actually somewhat moving for its first half and then quickly went downhill after that. Despite Ben’s efforts to sniff him out, Will actually seems to be a pretty nice guy, and it’s fun to see him express almost as much awkwardness as Kate during their date. It’s hard to top her, however, as evidenced by her greeting to him when he came into her house: “Hi, I’m Will.” BJ’s passionate investigation into why the bar employees were being rude to her led to a predictable explanation – calling them by the wrong names – but it was extremely funny as a result of her inability to care or correctly acknowledge them upon learning the truth. I’m more than a bit concerned for Maddie’s well-being, since BJ seems to supervise her a lot, but it was well worth it to hear Maddie tell her that she threatened a fellow classmate and have BJ go ahead and implement her advice in her own situation right away.