This show began brilliantly: repressed and depressed lonely American girl trying to meet people, a great cast of characters, quirky, but believable and tangible. Barney stole the pilot as a freethinking intellectual, and Kenny, the nice guy coping with his feelings of inadequacy due to his paralyzation. Rob with his questionable sexuality, and the three soccer wives having everything materialistically but lacking emotional fulfillment.
Then it bombed. First Barney's drug addiction. By the 2nd episode the intellectual is gone and is replaced by a heroin addict, a completely different character from the pilot. I understand eventually killing him: his original premise was gone and the shell that remained was too difficult to watch ... and then his brother appeared. I would rather watch Barney become strung out on heroin than watch Lachlan. Lachlan was a complete loser, and his relationship with Claire made no sense as she despised him always begging for sex.
And then Kenny, who was the saving grace of the first season. Simple. Humble. Struggling with his disability, and then that was dropped as he became a successful romance writer with every woman fawning over him. I watched as the only likable character was reduced to a veritable vegetable compared to the pilot persona.
I was hoping the series would recapture the glory of the pilot with the odd quirkiness, missed opportunities, and lost moments, but instead it became a psychotic beast, completely irrelevant to the pilot. I only kept watching the show because of the music and the dreamlike quality it gave the surreal moments. Without it as a motif in the second season I found the show to be near unwatchable.
If it were longer than twelve episodes from pilot to finale, I would have stopped watching it, but as it is I finished it so that I would know that it ended as horrible as I had feared. I wanted so much to like this show and instead, I despised it.