All of today's reviews fit into that category, in one way or another, although they're all quite different from each other. Satire, mockumentary, sitcom, hour-long. And I can’t tell whether it’s a
coincidence that today’s entry could just as easily have been called “shows
about guys.” I don’t mean to imply that
there aren’t women in these sorts of wry-truth comedies, or even that the women in the shows
aren’t interesting. (Playing House and Getting
On are each about interesting women, and are very different from each other.) The women in today’s selections range from the
token (in Silicon Valley) to beacons of sanity and competence (in
Fargo). But as I think about it, the critical mass of wry-truth comedies are about men. Satires about women (I’m thinking here of
shows like 30 Rock, Parks & Rec, and The Mindy Project) tend to be much
more traditional laughers, which are more generous to their characters and
forgiving of their flaws. But maybe that’s
just the ones jumping to mind at the moment.
Silicon Valley (HBO, new. Single camera sitcom.)
Watched: first three episodes
Premise: Satire about a startup in
current day Silicon Valley.
Promise: There’s a moment in the
pilot in which a character observes that programmers travel in little herds: “There's
always a tall skinny white guy, short skinny Asian guy, fat guy with a
ponytail, some guy with crazy facial hair and then an east Indian guy. It's
like they trade guys until they all have the right group." It’s a funny joke in the moment, and although
it doesn’t quite mirror the cast (which is less diverse than the quote’s
version—it replaces a couple of the archetypes with yet another average white
dude, hooray) it highlights that this is a story about guys. The only woman
with any consistent presence is both sympathetic and competent: she’s a translator, of sorts, between the
eccentric venture capitalist and our ragtag programmers—but any other woman is
there as a foil for our guys rather than as an actual person. Mostly they’re there to show just how
uncomfortable and inept these guys are around women, which is mildly humorous,
but tends to reinforce the image of women as having mysterious sexual power
over men—especially these men, who fall squarely into the
programmers-as-socially-awkward trope—and little else.
More to the point, the quote hangs a
lantern on a larger problem with the show, which is that it’s not really even
about its characters. Just as the women
are foils for the men, the men are foils for the absurd, almost Dadaist system
that the show’s creators want to mock.
Just as Office Space mocked the cubicle farm, this mocks the tech world,
and it does so quite well…but the characters are as much types as people, so
it’s hard to care about them. One cares
instead (to the extent one cares) about their absurd situation.
All that said, it’s a story about
mostly-sympathetic characters trying to figure out who they are in a hostile,
confusing world that overvalues some things about them and undervalues
others. And it has moments of utter
brilliance, mostly in its small observational details (an executive in toe
sneakers; a self-important jerk bellowing “who ate my fucking quinoa again?”)
rather than its broader comedy.
Verdict: As satire, it’s brilliant. As a group of people to spend a half hour
with each week, it’s so-so.
Sirens (USA, new. Single camera sitcom.)
Watched: first two episodes
Premise: Follows the lives of three
Chicago EMTs. Adapted by Denis Leary from a British
sitcom of the same name.
Promise: It has taken me a long time
to review this. In fact, its whole first season has ended, and I'm not sure whether it's coming back. My delay isn't because I've been waiting to generate any particularly interesting observation, but because
it didn’t ever quite fit with the other shows I was reviewing. In fact, it’s generally nondescript. It’s bantery, but not particularly funny,
drawing most of its humor from jokes about its main characters’ love
lives. One character is gay, another is
reeling from the end(ish) of a long-term relationship that he sabotaged, and a
third is a boy-scout type with (one presumes) little relationship
experience. There are a few sweet
moments as we see how much these guys genuinely care about each other—but mostly
it felt like what I imagine men’s locker-room humor would be like, and not
particularly inspired for that.
Verdict: Too funny to be serious, but not funny enough
to be funny. I lost interest early.
Review (Comedy Central, new. Single camera sitcom/mockumentary.)
Watched: whole season.
Premise: Instead of reviewing restaurants or movies, a
reviewer reviews life experiences as requested by his viewers.
Promise: I hadn’t realized, when the show began, that it
would have a season-long arc. I thought it was just one of those cute Comedy Central mockumentary shows based on some comic's clever idea. But I was wrong: What began
as a light entertainment, bordering on the silly and pointless, became darker
and more complex over the first few episodes, as we watched our reviewer gradually
sacrifice his life and (to the extent he began with it) his sanity for the sake
of his uncompromising devotion to the show. As the season continues and
terrible decisions pile atop unfortunate coincidences, we feel for him, while
understanding he has only himself, to blame. It's dark humor, but no less funny for its darkness.
Verdict: worth picking up on Netflix or the Comedy
Central app.
Fargo (FX, new. Drama.)
Watched: first two episodes
Premise: An assassin and generally malicious troublemaker
(played by Billy Bob Thornton) leaves chaos in his wake in 2006 Minnesota.
Promise: This 10-episode limited series is
thematically and tonally tied to the film, and shares the film's laconic nature and offbeat dark humor, but it has an entirely different cast
and story. The show is beautifully filmed, and populated by big-name actors. All (big and
small-named alike) are able to hold our attention even through the show’s matter-of-fact
treatment of improbable, dark, and sometimes gross plot twists. That's a testament to their skill: the show's quirkiness could easily feel manufactured, but most of the time here it just feels
like a trait of the show's world.
Thornton’s character is part participant,
part catalyst, bringing chaos and crime to sleepy communities whose underbellies
were—until his arrival—safely hidden from view.
Most of the show’s characters embody the mundanity of evil, making the
most selfish decisions seem ordinary. We
all like to think of ourselves as people who wouldn’t do any of these things—and
indeed, we wouldn’t— but we can see, sometimes, how these characters would. The show makes me feel a bit as I do watching
Justified—like I’m glad I don’t live in this almost cartoonishly amoral world,
but I appreciate getting a glimpse into it.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention
that the pilot came across as intensely misogynistic. The second episode turns it around, to a
large extent, as we come realize that by far the most sane, competent people in
the place are female—a police officer, and a teenaged girl whose father, played
with beautiful subtlety by Colin Hanks, is just about the only sympathetic man
on the show. Still, though, most of the
show’s women are either wives or strippers (whether by profession or voyeurism),
and the show takes a very dim view of the wives, who are all harridans, gold
diggers, or most often, both. (At this
stage in my viewing, the jury’s still out on the strippers.) But
the men aren’t much better—with a few exceptions, they’re just as craven, cruel,
and stupid as their wives. So I don’t
think it’s misogyny. I think its
misanthropy. In fact, it is that very
misanthropy that gives the show its wry-truth humor. And if, as I assume it does, the show
gradually becomes the story of the police piecing together what’s happened in
this town, those likeable characters will go an awfully long way toward making that
misanthropy feel just.
Verdict: well done.
On the DVR/Unreviewed: The Red Road, Crisis, The 100, Turn, Last Week Tonight, Penny Dreadful.
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