Hello World,
I have a confession. Although “Sex and the City” went off of the air more than 10 years ago at this point, I still watch at least one rerun a week. I’ve been on the SATC tour in NYC, and I even have the SATC board game. I truly feel like I know Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda & Samantha, and the girlfriends are really a part of my life even now.
That’s why when I heard about a new show featuring 30-something girlfriends (Not “Girlfriends”…another confession…I only discovered that wonderful show after it went off of the air, but that is another post for another day.) looking for love, and one of those women is choosing to do it (or not do it actually) while celibate, I knew I had to least watch once. “Born Again Virgin” is not a Christian show. Let me get that out of the way. Jenna, the central character of the sitcom, is a born again virgin meaning she is taking sex off the table so that it won’t cloud her decision in making the right choice of a mate. She decided to become celibate after realizing that her “body count”has surpassed her age. Ouch. Although “Born Again Virgin” is not a Christian show, however, I still think it has the potential to introduce many women to the best way of making a choice in a mate. And many of these women may not have considered this style of dating before…
The pilot episode of “Born Again Virgin” originally aired in February, and the feedback to the innovative show was so positive that the show is now back for a full season. The new season debuted last night with two, 30-minute episodes…
Episode 1: “No New Friends”
In the first scene, we see Jenna (Danielle Nicolet) dreaming about having sex…While Jenna is not doing it in real life, she can at least dream about it! So Jenna gets mad when she is awakened and thereby deprived of the only sexual experience she can have since she declared herself celibate four months ago…
Once she completely wakes up, she realizes that long-term celibacy is going to be hard, and she decides to join a Modern Day Virgins celibacy support group to the ridicule of her roommate Kelly (Meagan Holder), a hard-driving pr exec and her other roommate Tara (Eva Marcille), who is an over-the-top actress. During the first meeting, it becomes clear to her that the group is not made up of born again virgins. The group is for actual virgins. But she keeps her secret opting to stay in the group for the support she thinks it will give her particularly as she is constantly being tempted by one of her neighbors fine-as-wine Donovan (Durrell “Tank” Babbs). In 
fact, Jenna was dreaming about Donovan in the beginning of the show. How many of you know that when you are trying to walk on a higher path, the devil will set up a roadblock! At the end of the meeting, the group leader encourages the virgins to either call Jesus or her if they get weak in between meetings. Amen!
Jenna decides to host the next meeting of the Modern Day Virgins at her home, but her friends, who are curious about the group, crash the meeting. A random remark from Tara, who has no-filter (Think Samantha on SATC), reveals that Jenna is not an actual virgin. The group leader goes crazy and yells, “She’s been deflowered” while making the rest of the virgins evacuate her home like a bomb went off. But one virgin stays behind. She is intrigued that Jenna has actually been where she wants to go and asks for her help, saying that she is going to have sex with or without her help. Jenna makes up the plain Jane virgin with “hair and makeup,” and she is ready to go get her blessing so to speak. And before she even leaves the building, she encounters Donovan who is willing and able to bless her. The next day, her hair askew and her makeup smudged, she bumps into Jenna as she getting on the elevator to leave the building as she never left in the first place! She recounts her experience to Jenna who realizes that her temptation has deflowered her new friend. She is not pleased and decides she needs “no new friends.”
Episode 2: Go Hard or Go Home
Another reason why I like the show is that Jenna is a writer and has committed herself to blogging about her no sex in the city experience (I think the setting is Atlanta). (Sound familiar? Think me two years ago.) Although her blog seems to be successful as it is, she decides to take it up a notch by adding vlogging to her site. During her first video which she makes in a luxurious bedroom (sidebar: Why does every writer on TV seem to be doing better financially than most of the writers I know in real life?), she gets up from her laptop to show her audience something and realizes that she is wearing granny panties! Why wear sexy panties if no one is going to see them? Jenna’s vlogging, however, does attract new visitors to her site, particularly one 15-year-old girl who wants to stop having sex with her boyfriend but worries he will leave her if she does. Jenna is able to give some good advice to the teenager based on her own experiences.
Meanwhile, Kelly is working hard to get a new client, an NBA basketball player who is interviewing pr companies to market and promote his new video game. Kelly, who is very competitive, beats the basketball player at his own video game so to speak but simultaneously loses the account. The male ego is very delicate. But she won the account back by pretending she cannot play actual basketball very well, and his male ego is restored.
Tara, on the other hand, is trying to get the attention of Lisa Wu, yes Lisa Wu from “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” and now “Hollywood Divas” as she is trying to position herself as a reality star. When Tara and her roommates meet for dinner one night, Tara, who is secretly video recording the dinner, manufactures a crazy fight with her girlfriends and knocks all of their food of the table in “anger.” She shows the video to Lisa expecting to impress her with her antics but instead the reality show star encourages her to not sink that low! The irony is that Lisa was taping their conversation for her reality show…
So that is my quick and dirty recap of the first two episodes of “Born Again Virgin.” The show airs on TV One on Wednesdays at 10 p.m. EST/9 p.m. CST.
FYI: I didn’t take the best notes this time around because I wasn’t sure that I would like it, but I will be back next week with a thorough recap!
Will you be watching?
Any thoughts?
Beverly Hills, 90210 creator Darren Star brought Bushnell’s vision to an even wider audience when he adapted the column for an HBO series. His four main characters: Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha, forever branded the actresses that took on the roles, redefined women’s relationship to sex, and elevated the perception of singlehood. With their fashion-forward lifestyle, they launched a barrage of trends, from fabric flower accessories to Manolo Blahnik shoes to Cosmopolitan cocktails.
