Tag Archives: Comedy Central

Summer 2015 Review: Another Period

1 Jul

Another Period

Another Period is a ludicrous, silly show whose primary goal is to simply make you laugh, and fortunately, it does. Another Period is a spoof of Downton Abbey-esque upstairs/downstairs period shows, following a ludicrously wealthy family in New England around the turn of the 20th century.  The characters and dramatic storylines are overly absurd and the humor ranges from a combination of low-brow and clever wordplay to physical slapstick; the vast majority of the characters range from dumb to extremely dumb.

Creators Natasha Leggero and Riki Lindhome play daughters Lillian and Beatrice respectively, of the family Bellacourt. Both are demanding, immature and petulant. All that separates them is that Lillian has some semblance of intelligence, while Beatrice is a complete moron. Beatrice is married to Albert, played by David Wain, but in love with her brother, Frederick, played by Jason Ritter. Lillian is married to Victor, played by Brian Huskey. Michael Ian Black plays Mr. Peepers, the head butler, and Christina Hendricks is the new servant, originally named Celine, but named Chair by the less-than-sensitive Bellacourts. In total, it’s a very strong stable of comedic personalities, with some welcome faces newer to the world of comedy (Hendricks and Ritter).

The style is well over the top, and some people will merely Another Period is very stupid. And they’re right, it is very stupid. It’s very hard to articulate why some stupid humor is laugh-out-loud hilarious and some stupid humor is mind-numbing and cringe-worthy, and certainly everyone’s line between the two is very different. Another Period though lies squarely on the former side.

Another Period was probably conceived in response to Downton Abbey, and while the show makes hay out of the rich family vs. poor servants dynamic, there’s no attempt to be poignant or clever or meaningful with the period nature. It’s just there to serve as a vein for jokes and comedy. The period nature is ridiculous and flexible truth-wise. There’s no attempt to any reasonable semblance of fidelity; rather there’s an attempt to be as distinctly inaccurate as possible. One character makes a reference to Helen Keller, treating her as we would today rather than then. Guests are served cocaine wine; when Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan object as members of the Temperance Union, they’re told, helpfully, that it’s really mostly cocaine, anyway.  New servant Chair tells the others she has big dreams; the other servants scoff at her dreams of one day working in a factory.

The jokes are scattershot, fired left and right over the place, and they don’t all work by any means. Luckily it’s the type of show where the overall picture isn’t all that important – the show would rather drop a bunch of bad jokes and leave a whole bunch of good jokes in than go for something more refined but possibly less funny. That’s not always a successful formula, but it works here – the gags that don’t work are washed away as soon as something funny happens.

Will I watch it again? Yes. It’s funny, it’s easy to watch, and it’s got lots of people I like. Comedy Central continues its roll.

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Show of the Day: Secret Girlfriend

28 Oct

I’ve made mention before about how most Comedy Central shows fail within the first year.  Of course, part of this is because most of them are terrible; it would be giving short shrift to that fact to blame it all on Comedy Central having a quick trigger finger.  Their general terrible-ness has however, not prevented me from at least giving many of these shows a shot.

One of the more unique shows in this parade of one season cancellations was 2009-10s Secret Girlfriend.  Based on a pre-existing web series, the great gimmick of the show is that YOU are the main character.  What this means is that the camera is oriented as if you are walking around, looking at your surroundings, swinging up and down, left and right as different things get your attention.  You hang out with your two friends, Sam and Phil, who converse with you even though you can’t hear your responses.  They’re good friends, but boneheads and over the course of the series they explain to you their different hare-brained schemes and the web videos that they make.  You’re also a bit of a ladies’ man, and in the first episode you meet Jessica, the title “Secret Girlfriend” who has a boyfriend at the time, but with whom you eventually develop a relationship over the short course of the series.  The fourth and final main character (well fifth including YOU) is your crazy ex-girlfriend Mandy who breaks up with you in the first episode but still follows you around and is jealous of any girl who comes near you.

Sadly, the show is not very good.  I’m not sure whether that is simply because the camera format is too limiting or that it could be done well but wasn’t.  Each episode is composed of two 11-minute segments; the show might have been better suited to Adult Swim where short-format shows like Childrens Hospital and Eagleheart make their home.

The show is extremely crude and one of the main reasons for the camera style seems to be to allow the camera to focus on hot chicks.  Basically every female character in the show seems to be in love with you and you’re constantly have sex with them.  I’m not sure exactly sure what the comedic value there is.  The best moment in the series may be in the second episode when the characters go to a strip club, but find the food far more alluring than the strippers.  Crudeness can certainly be funny; Workaholics has done a fine job of showing that on a couple of occasions.  Too often, Secret Girlfriend doesn’t make it work however.  It doesn’t seem like there’s enough substance to justify expanding a shorter web series into a television show here.

In a world of rehashes, procedural police shows and tired old family sitcoms, it’s oddly refreshing to see a failed show that at least tried something new and interesting.  I’ll always have more respect for a show that takes a real shot and fails than one that doesn’t even try.

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Ranking the Shows I Watch – 22: Workaholics

15 Sep

Comedy Central runs through shows faster than well, choose your own analogy. Fast is the point.  If you’re not the Daily Show, Colbert Report or South Park, and you’re on Comedy Central, you probably won’t be next year.  I’ve tuned in here and there, but I try not to get too attached, because I know whatever show I’m watching won’t be around.  It’s usually not difficult because most of them are terrible or at least forgettably mediocre.  Dog Bites Man?  Remember that one?  Halfway Home, the prison-meets-real-world premise with Oscar from The Office.  Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire?  The only point of that show was that I had a new nickname for Frankie Rodriguez.  For this reason, it was hard to get too excited about Workaholics as the season progressed, marching towards its probable inevitable Comedy Central doom.  It was a sign though, that it wasn’t just me, when some executives there deemed Workaholics worthy of receiving the coveted second season.

I feel like this is true for about third of this list, but I started watching the show at least partially ironically.  Not ironically in the sense that I thought it would be horrible, more in a way that was several layers of anti-humor away ironically in that, upon the appearance of Workaholics commercials it was pretty much decided I was watching whether it ended up being good or not.  One such commercial featured a character asks one of the main characters, named Anders, if his name is Finnish, to which he replies, “No, sir – I’m just getting started.”  Not brilliant stuff, I know.  But it’s kind of funny.

Luckily, it actually ended up being pretty good, or at least there were funny parts in the first few episodes, enough so to keep me watching.  It’s not a sketch show, but it has some of a sketch show feel (think Michael and Michael Have Issues if you actually remember that Comedy Central show). There are three main characters and they work in a call center and do a bunch of stupid and/or ridiculous things in every episode.  Even better, as the season went forward, the episodes actually got significantly stronger – the consistency rate of laughs was higher.  The characters got themselves into sticky situations, such as ending up at a meeting of the Juggalos, and, to their advantage, unlike what happens in some sketch shows where the emphasis is on wacky plots and not characterization (as it should be, for the most part), the characters feel at least a little bit different.   You couldn’t simply switch their plots around in every episode.

Why it’s this high:  When it hits, it captures dumb funny as good as any show on TV – best moment perhaps – one character threatening a larger guy invading a party –  he says, “If we do this there’ll be two hits… me punching you in the face. and Kid Rock’s Bawitdaba playing in the background”

Why it’s not higher:  It’s tough on sketch-type shows – you get your hit and your occasional miss.

Best episode of most recent season:  “To Friend a Predator”  – just the premise alone is darkly funny and the episode delivers on it – the guys take it upon themselves to bait and take down a local child molester, only to find out he’s a really cool guy to hang out with.

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