Ben and Kate is a cute little feel-good comedy about a brother and sister coming together. The show follows Kate Fox (Dakota Johnson). Kate is a hard-working, high-strung single mom caring for her daughter Maddie (the girl from We Bought a Zoo). She lives with her older brother Ben (Nat Faxon), who is somewhat of a man child jumping from one get rich scheme to the next. Ben and Kate are accompanied on their adventures by BJ (Lucy Punch), Kate's best friend, and Tommy (Echo Kellum), Ben's best friend. Kate and Tommy are basically a couple, although the show drags it out and dances around the subject by having them date other people. Also, Ben and BJ have great chemistry, and you think they could be a cute couple. Bj also is perhaps the funniest character in the show.
Dakota Johnson is charming as the show's main protagonist. I haven't seen 50 Shades of Gray, but I loved her in How To Be Single and Peanutbutter Falcon, and she plays a similar role in this show. Ben, on the other hand, reminded me a lot of Taco from The League, in that he doesn't really fit in society and kind of beats to the sound of his own drum. The only exception is that Ben is more family Friendly than Taco, and he is actually a god surrogate dad to Maddie. Brittany Snow also guest stars in a few episodes as Lila. Lila isn't her best character as she is rather one-dimensional. This is largely due to the fact that the script never really gave her character much to do or any room to grow. Lila is pretty much just an obstacle for Kate and Tommy to work around. However, with that said, Brittany Snow does an amazing job with what she is given, and she steals every scene she is in.
The main problem with the show was that it seemed like it never really knew what it wanted to be. At times it seemed like it wanted to be a family-friendly show, and at other times, it seemed like it wanted to be an edgy comedy. And like any show that only has one season, there are a handful of storylines that are never finished, which is always annoying. But overall, it's a cute little show that is a quick binge, especially if you just need to escape from the world for a few minutes.
