The Melancholy Joy of "Love Bites"

NBC may be burning the episodes off in the summer instead of giving the anthology show a proper chance (hence, the melancholy), but over the last few weeks I've come to really enjoy the web of interconnected personal tales its been weaving. With longstanding My TV favourites Becki Newton, Greg Grunberg and Constance Zimmer as its recurring tentpoles, Love Bites features a rotation of wonderful guest stars from Donald Faison to Frances Conroy to Drop Dead Diva's adorable Ben Feldman in well-written and engaging vignettes about love, life and other stuff. The cross-over references are a ton of fun and the throughlines of the three central characters that weave, however subtly, through the other stories are wonderfully engaging (I'm particularly enjoying watching Becki Newton's Annie fall very very slowly in love with Matt Long). It's a really clever show, if you bother watch it. Really watch it, none of this pilot episode screener stuff. Otherwise you might miss little gems like Ben Feldman asking his ex-girlfriend how she could sleep with his (baseball player) hero: "who's next, the Green Lantern? Bono?". That said, I don't think I've ever seen a stupider promo poster.