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I'm kind of in love with "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend." And with the woman who plays her, Rachel Bloom.
I think you might fall in love, too.
This new series (Monday, 7 p.m., CW/Ch. 30) is sort of nuts. Bloom stars as Rebecca Bunch, a driven, successful, deeply unhappy and perhaps unhinged New York lawyer. She unexpectedly runs into her teenage crush — Josh Chan (Vincent Rodriguez III) — on the street and decides to give up a law firm partnership to follow Josh to his hometown of West Covina, Calif.
Rebecca quickly lands a job at a law firm in the Los Angeles suburb chiefly known for its car dealership, although her boss, Darryl (Pete Gardner), and the firm's chief paralegal, Paula (Donna Lynne Champlin), can't figure out why she quit the Big Apple for non-descript West Covina.
Neither can Josh's friend, Greg (Santino Fontana), who finds himself falling for Rebecca, despite her crazy behavior.
The premise is almost as crazy as casting Bloom — a self-described "minor YouTube celebrity" — as the lead in an hour-long network dramady that features big production numbers.
Yes, it's a musical. Every episode will have two or three production numbers. And you absolutely have to see the big salute to West Covina in the first episode.
"I'm still not convinced that this whole thing isn't a prank by my middle-school bullies," Bloom said. "This is amazing. I have a TV show. Who would give me a TV show?"
Once you see "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend," you'll understand. Bloom is fantastic as Rebecca— charismatic, funny and, yes, maybe slightly demented.
"Everyone feels crazy when they are in love at some point," Bloom said. "So what does this term mean — crazy ex-girlfriend?"
It's clearly not derisive.
Series creator Aline Brosh-McKenna and Bloom "realized that when you are truly obsessed and in love with someone in a way that you are stalking them, you are not going from being super happy about yourself to that. Chances are there is some level of depression or anxiety. So we knew we wanted to start with a character who was in a bad place and was then going to look at Josh Chan as an escape instead of looking within herself for the solution."
It's a bit dark. Although, while there are stalker-ish elements to Rebecca's behavior, it's not like Josh is in any danger. She's not that kind of crazy … she's kind of more normal crazy. Except for the big musical numbers she formulates in her head.
"Love makes you crazy," Bloom said.
"Everywhere we go," Brosh-McKenna said, "we find people have their own crazy-ex stories of the job they took, the town they moved to, the dorm they switched into, the major they changed for someone they were in love with."
When you're in the midst of it, you feel sort of crazy. When you're watching Rachel go through it, it's engaging. It's fresh. It's fun.
Scott D. Pierce covers television for The Salt Lake Tribune . Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter @ScottDPierce.