Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Sideswiped’ On YouTube Premium, About A Woman Who Goes On 252 Tinder Dates

You may or may not have heard of Carly Craig, but after you watch Sideswiped, you’ll start looking for her other work. The series is based on her own dating experiences in the Tinder era, and she not only stars, but writes and executive produces the show, as well. Can she make Tinder dating funny?

SIDESWIPED: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A woman is at her gynecologists’ office, ready to be examined. She sees the speculum and puts on a duck voice, because she always thought it looked like a duck.

The Gist: Olivia Maple (Carly Craig) is a successful insurance executive, but she’s in a bit of a funk on her 35th birthday. First of all, she’s spending it getting her annual gynecological exam, from an unexpectedly male — and handsome! — doctor (guest Jason Sudeikis). Then she figures she’ll get a bikini wax and go work on reports after work. Her sister Jayne (Chelsea Frei) — who has been married to her husband Jim (Craig Frank) for years, just had a baby and is feeling the physical and emotional drain of family life — comes to Olivia’s office with a cake and a plea to get out there and live.

Olivia, who hasn’t had any sex since breaking up with her first and only long-term relationship two years ago, is hesitant. But after the doctor tells her “my eggs will explode” sometime after 35, she’s even more upset. It doesn’t help that she lives with her recently-widowed mother Mary (Rosanna Arquette), who is open about sexuality and in a lot of ways acts younger than Olivia does.

After Jayne drags Olivia to a bar to celebrate Olivia’s birthday, Jayne springs a surprise on her sister: She’s signed her up for Tinder! After some furious swiping right by Jayne, her first match — an insurance company CEO, of all people (guest Thomas Lennon) — is nearby! He comes over, seems unfazed by the fact that Olivia is using Tinder on her birthday with her mom and sister. But he is a bit freaked out when he sees Olivia, loaded with coffee and booze, squatting over a urinal because the ladies’ room line was too long.

The next morning, all hungover, Olivia discovers she has 252 matches, after swiping right in a drunken haze the night before. She decides to date every one of those matches, not just to find “the one”, but just to have some adventures for the first time in her life.

Our Take: There’s no doubt that Carly Craig is funny; even if you never saw her on shows like American Housewife or Hello Ladies, just watching her in the first two episodes of Sideswiped, we see that she’s not afraid to look goofy, act like she’s out of control, and embrace physical gags like squatting over a urinal. She holds her own sparring with Arquette, who sparkles as the free-spirited Mary.

There are gags in the first episode of Sideswiped, like when Olivia pounds down a trenta iced coffee, or when she “pays it forward” getting that coffee and gets screwed for $37, that are laugh-out-loud funny. The show also makes good use of screenshots of Tinder and social media profiles to illustrate what’s going on in Olivia’s dating life. Apparently, this is based on something that really happened to Craig, so the 252-dates idea isn’t unrealistic and has some good comedic potential.

All of this is good, because it’s all necessary for Sideswiped to get past the cliche of “I’m a woman whose clock is ticking and I’m going crazy because I’m not getting laid or meeting the man of my dreams.” It feels slightly behind the times in 2018, where the idea that female characters in their 30s or above shouldn’t be portrayed needing to find “the one” has fallen out of favor. It also feels a little disingenuous to see Craig rail on her body, even if much of it is her mother Mary pointing out the slightest flaws.

But the show is what it is, and Craig, Arquette and Frei have a fantastic rapport with each other, and it makes the show worth watching as we see Olivia navigate the dating scene in the world of swiping left or right.

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, but more in the second, for both Olivia and Mary.

Parting Shot: In bed with Jayne and Mary, all hungover, she sees a Tinder text from a young, hot guy wearing five-toed shoes. Not her type but — he’s hot! She responds to the text with a “Hi :)”.

Sleeper Star: Frei has some pretty funny moments in the first episode, like when she lifts her top in Olivia’s office to show how badly her baby has ravaged her nipples.

Most Pilot-y Line: The date with Thomas Lennon’s character does feel like the sitcom trope of the “dream date who doesn’t think your weirdness is weird,” but still gets turned off by a very sitcomy situation (albeit a funny one).

Our Call: Stream It, because Craig, Arquette and Frei make a heck of a comedy team.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Sideswiped on YouTube Premium