“Los Angeles: world of opportunity. You can even have sex with movie stars if you wanted.”

Is there such thing as a single 30-something finding true love in Hollywood? Let alone, a giant six foot something dork who’s not even in the “biz”? HBO’s Hello Ladies created by Stephen Merchant (The Office, The Ricky Gervias Show) poses that very question with Stuart (also Stephen Merchant), a British web designer looking for love who loves spitting game at the ladies. The problem? The ladies never really seem to love spitting game back.

The show plays around with many variables of people trying to make it in the industry. For instance: Stuart’s tenant Jessica (Christine Woods) who’s an actress working on her web series about “globalization”. Stuart and Jessica bounce off of each other by making fun and sharing the experiences that are their “love” lives, aka: Jessica, not being able to call out the big shot Glenn who’s just using her for sex, and Stuart’s sad (and laughable!) failed attempts at getting a date with a beautiful model/actress-type.

Stuart is an absolute dork (he types HTML code all day at home with his co-worker Rory), but when it comes to trying to impress chicks he tries so hard most times he ends up knocking a table of drinks over at a club, embarrassing himself to the point the ladies are practically running for their lives.

Wade (Nate Torrence) , Stuart’s friend and fellow nerd whose wife of 11 years just left him, is an absolute wreck; he can’t go ten seconds without talking about her, so of course Stuart is always doing whatever he can to get Wade’s mind off the situation by offering to take him out partying at fancy nightclubs, rolling around in his red ’94 BMW convertible (listening to Cypress Hill!).

Kives (Kevin Weisman), Wade’s buddy that always butts heads with Stuart, is a crass jokester who, ironically out of the three, is the only one who seems to get laid (his famous line is “dating, mating, or masturbating?”)—adding the perfect touch of funny to the show; the 5 minutes of the three of them going out to a nightclub made the entire pilot.

I’m already invested in Hello Ladies simply because of Merchant, along with the rest of the show’s cast and writers (one being a favorite of mine, Jen Statsky); I look forward episode 2 where the guys rent a stretch limo to try and seal the deal with some ladies…