Day: April 17, 2016

Yesterday I fumbled through an evening post about the Judd Apatow show ‘Love’ featuring Paul Rust. The point I was trying to make was that there is this standing trope of the average to below-average looking dude constantly being engaged by beautiful women. This show does that, but I want to believe that they are doing it openly and sarcastically. Given the way the writing group drops in various tropes as jokes and open snark, this is quite possibly part of the joke or they are at least in on the joke.

They are in on a lot of jokes, like the one where they cast Chris Rock’s lil brother as the black friend who always shows up to provide the perfect advice, and then he says that he is the black friend who always shows up to provide the perfect advice and his character is in Hollywood to act as that exact trope character.

The show isn’t the best I’ve seen but there are a few gems. It takes some funny shots at Hollywood and the movie industry. I’ve gotten several episodes in and it is strangely uncomfortable and compelling to watch the main love story unfold. The writing itself is wonderful and when those gems hit (mostly the argument scenes and the relationship formation scenes) it is TV gold. I suppose what I like the most about the entire situation is that it never goes in quite the direction they make you wanna believe it is heading. Not overall. See, it isn’t actually a love story.

Not even a little.

I checked out a new netflix show the other day (actual netflix and chill, with none of the urban dictionary flair). The show is called Love and is created by Judd Apatow and the couple of Paul Rust and Lesley Arfin. I gotta say this about Apatow, he’s about the unattractive dudes getting the pretty girl. Of course, that is how everyone is, but sometimes Apatow goes off the deep end. This new show, Love, is interesting. It charts the budding ‘romance’ of two people with difficult backgrounds and very limited skills at building relationships. The show is hilarious and weird and everything you’d expect from the people responsible for This is 40 and girls.

It makes me feel like Netflix is on to something. They are churning out shows at the rate of a local network.  The shows either hit or miss, but tend to hit at a rate greater than what happens on NBC, ABC, and CBS. Even better, these shows tend to be more experimental and land all at once, so I can check out an entire season binge mode.

Some Thoughts:

1. The new interface for the site doesn’t work right. It isn’t publishing the pages without help.