High Desert

Sight gags galore.

Would not normally have picked it because the description is inadequate, but so glad I tuned in.

Original writing, original concept, it's as black as a HEART can be, so funny. Brilliant acting, Patricia Arquette is superlative, haven't seen her in years, but wow, she is just amazing, her face is untouched by Botox or fillers, it is so expressive. Just beautiful, she is dead pan when required, emotive when required.

Do yourself a favour, just watch it.

God, I hate this new minimum characters requirement by IMDB; I already said everything that needed to be said, the rest is just wasting time.

It is a very nice watch and very fast paced not stuck in supergeneric dialogues and plottwists yada yada. It just has a nice offbeat'ish flow and it flows well.

Patricia Arqueutte really nails this role, which surpsided me. I was a but skeptical at first, but when you catch your depressed semi-cynical self laughing about her ways of personifying the character than you just have to give it up.

Sadly they chose to go a bit less offbeat/weird as it could be, with some safe commercial mainstream ingredients in it, and some generic acting from others. If that was different it could have been even great. But I dig it.

This and White House Plumbers kind of share some of the same quirkiness, and I'm down for it.

Also, I'm a sucker for the desert town scenery.

I approached this show with poor expectations. Just to let myself be entertained for twenty minutes. Indeed, at first sight this looked like one of those low-budget internet TV series for a young generation suffering from low attention spam.

What I actually encountered is absolutely brilliant and delightful. Fresh, provocative, sparkling, funny and very original.

Quite obviously, something like this could only work with a very solid cast and I must confess I have always appreciated Arquette's talent, but this is another dimension all together. The entire thread, in its minimalism, rests on her shoulder and she leads wonderfully with a consistent support from her fellow colleagues.

The cherry on the cake for an irregular but very interesting career. I expect she should receive some sort of award for this. She deserves it.

The opening of episode one was a great hook. Pulled me in and had me interested...

But...

After that point, there wasn't any real "storytelling". There were a bunch of scenes strung together to hopefully make some sort of story.. but no ACTUAL storyline or overall plot.

No clue where it was going.. often bored by how it was getting there.

Sure some moments were humorous and Arquette does a great job with the role.. but.. it's meandering.. wandering.. seeking to find a reason. There is not clear plot.. no expectation for anything that's been foreshadowed.. no mystery to solve... no outcome to hope for... no future.

With about 5 minutes left in episode 4 I bailed.. bored to tears.. never to look back.

Why doesn't anyone focus on good storytelling any more??? It would appear most newer productions either want to make a puzzle out of any overall plot.. or just avoid any overall plot altogether. This series was the latter.

If I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel... it's a trap... not a tunnel. This.. this is a trap.

First off - how nice to see a real sized woman carrying a series. Arquette is nothing short of brilliant AND beyond funny. Her comic timing is impeccable.

Add a dash of Bernadette Peters - the one with the straight hair, so you might not recognize her until she speaks - along with Brad Garrett, add a host of incredible actors and you are in for a treat.

This is a fast paced, smart show. I found myself rewinding several times just to make sure I didn't miss anything - and I usually did.

The setting is another character in itself, for those of us who are not desert people and only know it from Breaking Bad.

This is a great way to escape our follies and join Patricia Arquette in hers. It's so nice to know someone has it worse off than we do.