I've seen people comparing it to High Maintenance and saying it's not as good. Well, it's not HBO for sure, but the target audience is very much different in my opinion. While High Maintenance is about stoners, Disjointed is for stoners. All the episodes have some sort of animated "trippy" scenes, you can also notice Ruth listening to Alan Watts in her car, not to mention the marijuana related facts and factoids. If you pay attention, the WIFI passwords change in each episode and they're all Youtube links. Too bad some of them are taken down already, but it adds this extra something, that makes you think it's really well thought of. I'm really disappointed it got cancelled.
If you're not going to be stoned while watching this show you're simply not going to get it
This show is pure gold.
Disjointed is the perfect name for this comedy series. There are some good things and quite a few bad things. Let's start with the good things.
Disjointed brings Kathy Bates back to series television. She plays Ruth Whitefeather Feldman, the owner of Ruth's Alternative Caring, a medical marijuana dispensary in a California strip mall. Ruth is a cannibis advocate, cannibis lawyer and a cannibis user. (You probably should be, too.) She has an adult black son, Travis (Aaron Moten), who she apparently abandoned for a while and who consequently went on to business school and got a degree. There's an assortment of other oddball characters either employed by the dispensary or who hang out there. I'll get back to them.
Veteran comedy director Jim Burrows is aboard for the pilot and a few of the episodes as well. That's a good thing, too.
The other great thing is that the show has a great opening credits sequence. It's various scenes of Reefer Madness juxtaposed with the tune Jack, I'm Mellow as sung by Trixie Smith. Enjoy it while you can though because beyond the first two episodes, you won't see it again. Apparently, the only thing the producers think is important is that it's a Netflix original series produced by Warner Bros. After the first two episodes, they "literally" fast-forward through the opening credits to get to the action.
Of the six episodes that I've been able to get through as of this writing, there have been a couple of story arcs already. In these first few episodes, Ruth tries to get Travis together with Olivia (Elizabeth Alderfer) to have "butterscotch babies." Jenny, the tokin' Asian, has dropped out of medical school and hasn't told her parents, Pete, the grower of Ruth's various strains, is revealed to be quite aware of what's going on around him, despite his laid-back nature. The most fascinating regular is Carter, a vet and Ruth's security guard. He has an interesting arc as well. He has PTSD, which manifests itself in animation. However, his problems are dispensed with by getting him to smoke his first joint.
There's several recurring characters who hang out at the dispensary as well including an always-high couple named Dank & Dabby, Ruth's nemesis, Tae Kwan Doug and a housewife depressed by her domestic situation.
The problems I have with Disjointed are many. It's uneven. It's kind of done in the style of UHF or The Groove Tube, if you've seen those. There are story arcs, but there are also sketches and commercial parodies and product placement masquerading as commercial parodies. It's all kind of ... disjointed. Despite all that, it's still structured like a network situation comedy, filmed before a live audience, with fade-to-black spots for real commercial inserts. It's as if Chuck Lorre hopes to sell the show to actual syndication one day.
And, is that Aaron Moten's real voice?
By episode 3, he started to sound like one of The Chipmunks.
However, the biggest problem I have with Disjointed turns out to be the one reason I wanted to watch it: Kathy Bates. It's not Ms. Bates, it's her character. Ruth is not a nice person. I really want to like her, but the more I watch her, I really don't. That's why it's been a struggle to get through these first ten episodes.
Disjointed is being presented in two parts by Netflix. Part One, episodes 1-10 were released now. Part Two, episodes 11-20 will be released in 2018. Currently, it has a 5.9 rating on IMDb, a 14% Rotten Tomatoes score, a 50 RT Audience score, a 43 Metacritic score and a 2.9 user score on Metacritic.
I started because of Bates and I'm happy I did. This series is far from perfect but it has many interesting characters. I love Ruth, but the best one is Carter. His story is very interesting, less comical and more drama but I love it. Maria is very nice too and she has some of the funniest moments. The bad: The fake ads and sketches made no sense, this show would be way better without them. And Dank and Dabby are funny at first but they are over used and you get tired of them. This show is not going to win awards but it reminds me of Mom, another comedy by Lorre I love and should be more popular. I'll keep watching.
Garbage. The only somewhat redeeming factor of this show is the fact that Kathy Bates happens to be in it, but that's not enough to make up for every other character being absolute unfunny idiots. Lovable idiots are a common comedy trope but these are not remotely likeable. And its not one of those shows where "you have to smoke to get it". No its just as bad if not worse to watch while smoking lol.
I really liked this show! It's funny, great cast and has trippy animations.
I've seen much much worse shows with no plot run for couple of seasons.
Such a shame this got cancelled! This had great potential. Let me get the rights to this show, I'll unlock its potential.
Funny show, love Kathy bates
Couldn't even put a vague smile on my face, so absolutely not my cup of tea.
Loved it! Funny, artistic, surprising, original, experimental and very entertaining!
Shout by Catherine MichelleBlockedParent2018-04-11T13:26:19Z
Honestly, this is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. I don't know why more people didn't like it. Kathy Bates is amazing, and all the little storylines really gave it a lot. Do they need to get back to their roots? Sure, but it's amazing regardless, and I woke my husband several times laughing next to him in bed trying to be super quiet.