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Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23

Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.

IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: April 25, 2012

PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, “Parent Trap” (Season 1, Episode 3*) [Watch on Netflix.]

*”Parent Trap” was the third episode to air on ABC, but it’s listed as episode 10 on Netflix.

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Odds are, the only thing the average TV viewer ever knew about Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 was the dust-up over its title. This was during the brief period in ABC’s illustrious programming history where they flirted with naughtiness in their program titles before backing down to pressure (see also: Good Christian Bitches, later neutered to GCB).

It’s too bad that most viewers never got past the title, because Don’t Trust the B—- was an incredibly fun, and rather singular, network comedy from showrunner Nahnatchka Khan. If that name sounds familiar now, it’s because she’s currently running another incredibly fun and singular ABC comedy, Fresh off the Boat.

The premise of the series: walking Big Eyes painting June (Dreama Walker) moves to the big city only to lose her job and fiancé, only to gain a self-centered, heedless party girl of a roommate in Chloe (Krysten Ritter), the titular B—-.

One of the better quirks of the show came in the form of Chloe’s best friend, actor James Van Der Beek (James Van Der Beek). JVDB, on the show at least, was an exquisite incarnation of a vain actor, with much bigger capacity for silliness than you might have expected.

In “Parent Trap,” while Chloe is busy adopting a foster tween to be her personal assistant, James is preparing for a role in a body-swap comedy (the first ever father-daughter body swap comedy!) by spending time with his co-star: Mad Men star and internet darling Kiernan Shipka. Chloe welcomes her in her own inimitable way.