6.7/10. A perfectly decent start. Nothing that really knocked my socks off, but had its moments. The funniest part for me was the Veep's awkward redacted speech. I have a particular appreciation for that sort of cringe-y humor, and the silliness of her just spitballing up there worked for me. Otherwise, this felt like a weaker, harder-edged version of Parks and Recreation. However, P&R started out as a weaker version of what it would become, so I'm willing to give it some room to improve. (And Mrs. Bloom came up with a very apt analogy -- Parks and Recreation:The West Wing::Veep:House of Cards.)
In terms of the characters, Gary provided the most laughs for me, with his sycophantic hovering. Tony Hale's a treasure, so I'm glad he's around. None of the other characters did much for me, with some nascent relationship drama and love triangles seemingly cemented out of the gate with Amy/Jonah/Dan. Dreyfus was fine, vacillating between the smiling public figure and the perturbed boss with relative ease. And the mishmash of plots, from trying to get a Clean Jobs sponsor to the "hoisted by my own retard" gaffe to the greeting card mishap were a little jumbled, but gave the folks around enough to do. There's a certain Party Down vibe in terms of the episode structure, if not quite in laughs just yet.
Overall, didn't really wow me out of the gate, but since it's so lauded, I'm up for seeing where the show settles.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2016-11-10T19:59:00Z
6.7/10. A perfectly decent start. Nothing that really knocked my socks off, but had its moments. The funniest part for me was the Veep's awkward redacted speech. I have a particular appreciation for that sort of cringe-y humor, and the silliness of her just spitballing up there worked for me. Otherwise, this felt like a weaker, harder-edged version of Parks and Recreation. However, P&R started out as a weaker version of what it would become, so I'm willing to give it some room to improve. (And Mrs. Bloom came up with a very apt analogy -- Parks and Recreation:The West Wing::Veep:House of Cards.)
In terms of the characters, Gary provided the most laughs for me, with his sycophantic hovering. Tony Hale's a treasure, so I'm glad he's around. None of the other characters did much for me, with some nascent relationship drama and love triangles seemingly cemented out of the gate with Amy/Jonah/Dan. Dreyfus was fine, vacillating between the smiling public figure and the perturbed boss with relative ease. And the mishmash of plots, from trying to get a Clean Jobs sponsor to the "hoisted by my own retard" gaffe to the greeting card mishap were a little jumbled, but gave the folks around enough to do. There's a certain Party Down vibe in terms of the episode structure, if not quite in laughs just yet.
Overall, didn't really wow me out of the gate, but since it's so lauded, I'm up for seeing where the show settles.