Avenue 5 2020

People need to stop being so obnoxiously negative. This show is extremely entertaining. Maybe not always funny, in a sense, but certainly always entertaining. Entertaining isn't as subjective as funny. And if you don't find it to be entertaining, at the very least, you're doing something wrong. Lower your negativity, lingering expectations, and I bet you'll begin to find it entertaining, a little bit, at first.

Anyway, all that aside, I enjoyed watching this show very, very much. The fictional history of the in-show world and the subtle references to little bits and pieces of it came out of nowhere and was probably one of the most shocking aspects of it if not the most. But it was super interesting from the start, and then began to be entertaining and a very wonderful running gag, so to speak. The gradual descent into anguish and madness made for a compelling theme and didn't disappoint.

The VFX (or CGI?) of outer space, and maybe the space ship itself as well, something that I think I've seen a person or two complain about and call bad, or at least comparing it to a much older show that had "bad" VFX/CGI that also didn't age very well, didn't look remotely bad to me. In actuality, it looked quite good and...crisp or whatever, I don't know. Each significant character was entertaining. Yes, even Karen. Sure, if you're more passionate and generally immersive in what you watch than I am, you probably hate her and don't particularly like any of the other characters. That's fine.

Moving on, the main issue which a lot of people have with the show that I've seen is that it isn't funny, and I think that's a load of bollocks. While the show is advertised as a comedy or considered to be a comedy, first and foremost, you're supposed to be entertained. Not to mention, this is, without a doubt, and very obviously, a much different version of the comedy genre than usual. That alone should've been obvious before going off and complaining about how much the show sucks, and how remarkably unfunny it is. That being said, feel free to freely act negatively towards the show, most of you probably already have. I liked it and I'm looking forward to the second season, and it's a good thing for the show that those of you who I've mentioned, you know who you are, have been weeded out and won't be returning. Goodbye.

Well, I can definitely tell this isn't for everyone, as ratings suggest. And then after the first few bad reviews, herd mentality kicks in and it does the rest of the job.

That being said, wow... what a series! Given the plethora of bad reviews, this may come as a surprise. And yes, the 10/10 rating maybe is a tad bit emotional, but way less so than the 1/10 ratings. Maybe a 8/10 if we're being fully rational, but this movie took me out of a pandemic-related depressive period, and I'm thankful to it for it.

Back to the review. The series is a fantastic twist on how the world could look like in a sci-fi utterly capitalistic future, where the rich own even the air you breathe. It takes us aboard Avenue 5, which is space cruise ship – think Diamond Princess, but on space!

The series tries to be funny, and you can notice it does. For me, that's what makes the series enjoyable, and maybe the opposite for others. The humor can get very dark, yet you might catch yourself laughing. It feels a bit similar to Silicon Valley, if Pied Piper was instead Avenue 5.

It is a masterpiece, and I was pleasantly surprised to see my wife actually enjoying a sci-fi setting – she can't stand Marvel movies in comparison.

Go ahead, watch it. Give it 4 episodes, and while you're there, watch the rest as well. It's only 30 minutes an episode, and you got nothing better to do! It is relatively fast paced, so lots of stuff may fly over your head as you watch it for the first time.

Hugh Laurie is just brilliant by the way. Did I mention the rest of the cast is great as well?

This is a show about Hollywood. You can watch this as a Cruise Ship comedy, with the pretense of it being "in space", since the science/themes are dimwitted. If that's what you get, then it's a 5/10 parody, with Hugh Laurie.

Essentially, the "COMEDY" setup can and should be ignored and it's fun/dark/black comedy at the stupidity/unreality of ... Life in a bubble, filled with ugly, rich and "monstrously stupid" people in authority roles.

In no way is this a SciFi show, it's ... Veep Season 1, on a thinly disguised Ocean Cruise liner. Once the cringey first few episodes are passed behind, and you can gloss over the terrible casting, the tone-deaf comedy, it's tolerable. You should expect to see more shows like this in 2020 and 2021 until the industry goes broke.

But, there's a secret here. This isn't about a cruise ship, this is a very "meta" parody of what happens in the US TV industry and the kind of "management" that goes on, from the PR, to the managers, to the Directors, Producers. EP's and hangers-on that bicker, fight and trample over each other. It has to be a parody, or else it's the most expensive "corridor" comedy I've seen in a long time, and they wasted tens of million dollars on a terrible show. So, fingers-crossed, this is "clever" or I've accidentally peeked behind the curtain, and seen the Wizard of Oz, trying to make the show work.

Especially how they, more than likely, built an actual 3 story set "promenade" green-screen and "hollowed out tree" boardroom set, with HBO's "Game of Thrones" money. And then connected a series of maybe ~8 corridors in different secondary shots in hotels and so on, to copy the Star Trek / Love Boat formula. Maybe there's a US Shopping Mall they used for the "promenade" set, IDK. It feels like they might have built it to save time on borrowing location shots, due to the frequent reuse. They spent a comically large amount of money on setpiece rooms, only to have "Bottle Episodes", etc.

The music is, cheap. One of the EP songs actually is fun, but the 'theme' is cancerous at times. I can't think of a better word. It bypasses haunting and past irritating, and onto harmful.

I don't know. I Like trashy TV with SciFi tones, and Hugh Laurie makes this bearable. So I'll give it a 6 to 7/10, but...

I would not pay for HBO if I saw this show, it could be a Youtube Original series, easily. IMO You would have much more fun watching the Karate Kid sequel, Cobra Kai, just forget Avenue 5 exists.

There's thin moments of redeeming quality, Slathered in awful. Once you realise how pretentious the producers are... Essentially like Star Trek: Discovery, a good percentage of the show is just wallowing in the "filth" of being ordinary and stupid, of being the people who go to casino's and cruise ships, who bring their family on vacation, etc. Us "ordinary" people can't understand the privilege of being behind the monster(s), and not in their periphery.

Avenue 5 is better than Star Trek Discovery. For whatever that's worth.

And it's very likely they got HBO funding for creating the "Orange Man Bad" Analogue, Herman Judd as an egomaniacal, wealthy imbecile who is irredeemably successful; and charming enough that he's given authority more often than not despite the open knowledge of his poor IQ. Josh Gad the Actor, is both the wrong and right character. With Gad, the show is irritating. Without Gad, you have to actually bring in better actors who are able to spar/quip/snark back.

The show revels in having Judd/Gad spout useless witticisms and quips as the mega-rich, "antagonist" too dumb to live, too rich to die, Herman Judd, Owner of the Avenue 5. Judd, isn't the worst character. He is the most unlikeable and annoying, but he's also very much a product of Hollywood's privilege. Ignore the Ocean Cruise Liner motif, the only way this show becomes funny, is when you can laugh at the producers and writers who put this together. And, if you can tolerate the first 4 episode set-up, and get past the banal, it makes a 6/10 to 7/10 show.

But it's a lot to tolerate.

After Episode 4, the characters mellow out, and there's some fun jokes that filter through the stupid. Now, there's probably an argument as to Herman Judd, the "antagonist" of the show, being a Trump Analogue, until he get's one-upped by Paterson Joseph, Connor Mason from Timeless. Their Banter is perhaps the moment you realise the potential of the show, by accident. It's not Hugh Laurie/Captain Clark's reserve of boundless snark, it's that you finally get a character more annoying and likeable at the same time.

It's a bit like Mythic Quest Raven's Banquet, where a bunch of comedians try to parody a real-life biography of a game developer and company scenario, and in order to not be sued, have to parody the f**k out of the characters and that kind of license ruins the actual comedy of parody. Something like Silicon Valley, written by someone with "insiders" like Mike Judge who spent time in the 90's and the 200's Internet VC-funding boom and bust, are skillful and adept. If you put this on the same level as Silicon Valley, you'll be sorely disappointed.

The Meta, is that the show itself is excruciating to watch, because they need YOU to understand, everyone is an idiot. That's the subtext/theme. The first 4 episodes set up the Theme of "people are stupid", the next 4 is "people are tribal", and if it goes for a second season, it will be that 'failure is rewarding', sic.

It's not SciFi. The plot is absurd, the core characters are ... mis-cast, and there's actual black comedy that gets buried under the layers of fecal matter surrounding the production needed. There are some "interesting" concepts and clever writing of background characters, like the bridge crew (s), but the Core staff are designed to be irritating "AUTHORITY FIGURES ARE IDIOTS" etc. comedy.

Avenue 5 really needed to be longer, or perhaps recast to have 2 "straight" roles to offset some of the 60 IQ point personalities that make the show unbearable Nobody in the show gets out of this unscathed except perhaps for Hugh, and I don't mind that. He is capable and it's fun to see him "Let his hair down", literally.

While it's a 3/10 kind of effort, and ... it gets better after the setup, you can see the actual, hidden effort between the horrendous and stupefying moments that qualify as "comedy".

It gets to a 6/10 to 7/10 show after the first 4 episodes, once the premise has been completely murdered and they give up on making things intentionally "comedy", especially the semi-ironic concept of having a comedian "pretend" not to be funny to conserve oxygen, and not especially putting in more effort than when he was lounge-act performing a dull, incredibly cringy stand-up routine.