Maybe CBS thought that skinny Sarah Michelle Gellar wasn’t hefty enough an actress to play herself twice — as twins. And they were wrong.
Turns out that instead of keeping her new series, “Ringer,” for itself, CBS foisted this new and pretty darned interesting show on its kid sister, The CW. And “Ringer,” it turns out, is so good that it’s CBS’ bad.
Gellar plays Bridget, an ex-stripper/junkie who has witnessed the dismemberment murder of another stripper by the strip club’s mobbed-up owner. While under the protection of FBI Agent Victor Machado (Nestor Carbonell), Bridget escapes, tying up another cop and stealing his gun in the process.
Now on the run, without the support of her Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, Malcolm (Mike Colter), with whom she has a real affinity — the only real affinity in her spare and ugly existence — she’s almost out of options.
But not quite. Bridget, it turns out, has an identical twin the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Patty Duke played identical cousins back when Jesus was still in Swaddling Pampers.
Bridget makes her way to the Hamptons where twin Siobhan summers in uber luxury — when she’s not living it up in Manhattan with her English husband, Andrew (Ioan Grufard). Between the Ioans and the Siobhans, it’s hard to know how to pronounce anyone’s name, I know.
But Siobhan is such a nasty wench, she’s never mentioned to her husband the fact that she has a disgraceful twin.
Anyway, when Siobhan mysteriously disappears from a boat, Bridget, in desperation, takes her place in the home and heart of her sister’s husband — and, to her shock, the sister’s lover!
It gets even more complicated. We know that the mobbed-up murderer is after Bridget — but then we learn that, since Siobhan is hated by most people, someone may be trying to kill both of them.
Into the mix comes Siobhan’s child, Sean, whom we do not see in the pilot other than a photo, and a stepdaughter, Juliet (Zoey Deutch); Siobhan’s best friend, Gemma (Tara Summers) and her best friend’s husband, Henry (Kristoffer Polaha).
What a pair. Siobhan is a bitch and Bridget is a ho. Together, they don’t make one person you actually want to have lunch with — but as characters you definitely want to spend some time with both of her.
Gellar — who at age 34 is reaching senior citizen status compared to the rest of The CW lineup — and the show are geared to an adult demographic so whether it will find an audience on this network remains to be seen. And it should be. Seen that is.