HBO's new dramedy How to Make It in America is a street-level view of entrepreneurs who weigh the ambition to succeed with moral conundrums about borrowing more money. Wannabe clothiers Ben (Bryan Geenberg) and Cam (Victor Rasuk) need more than just ideas and bolts of denim to make the dream happen, though; they need to coordinate, socialize with their bankable connections, and cling to their blanching optimism in a grayed-out New York City to have a prayer. The trailer, embedded after the jump, promises true-to-life lessons in "getting there." But is the pilot just as desperate as its protagonists?
Usually the problem with reviewing a pilot is not being able to gauge character progress, or how much a show actually builds on its raw materials. How to Make It in America alleviates that problem, though, because the quality and originality here are so lacking that seeing it through to episode two seems like a demoralizing lesson in buyer's remorse. Both lead characters here are neatly stacked cliches: Ben is a white guy who, when he's not missing his ex-girlfriend, is the brains of the hustle. Cam is a conniving Latino who eats his grandmother's cooking and invokes theories about The Man. They're mismatched, but they need each other. You can find this kind of characterization in an average music video.
Like many "urban" series, How to Make It in America casts its locale as a separate player. New York -- with its gallery openings, loft spaces, and decrepit chain-link fencing -- seems to say as much about what's happening as its denizens themselves. And that, of course, is not saying much, since this view of New York is as predictable and cliched as the black-and-white photography the duo tries to hawk late in the first episode. If How to Make It in America threw us more comic moments instead of bland brush-ups with struggling featured players (including Luis Guzman as the partners' onetime savior Rene), we might glean a little humanity from this downtrodden trek. As such, this is an imitation leather jacket hanging with a multitude of others at a huckster's kiosk, and no amount of archetypal scripting, skyscraper-ogling, or bromides about the ways of The Man will sell it to us.