Suburban Shootout

Good comedy, nice jokes. Not an outstanding production but quite decent. And, about Ruth Wilson... There's a colloquial expression in Greek: "Trelo Gomenaki". Well, in that show, she is a Trelo Gomenaki indeed...

"Stepford Wives" vs "Suburban Housewives" or perhaps an English "Twin Peaks" - you'd understand the connection if you REALLY watched "Twin Peaks". The acting is rich, the comedy black and the content adult. If you enjoy bloke comedy then you will recognize a few faces. It doesn't take long before you are well entrenched into the story line and you'll be thanking Oxygen for running two episodes back to back.

Overall theme: Joyce and her husband have moved into a small English city (it has a church, so it's a city) as he has accepted a position as chief constable. Two factions of housewives are contending for influence/control over Joyce and ultimately, her husband's influence over local law enforcement. Each gun toting faction uses a different method of influence, fear and intimidation vs conscience and moral duty.

The supporting characters (more a case of caricatures) are campy and carried out by actors and actresses with the same commitment to their role as Don Adam's "Maxwell Smart".

Highly recommended.

It is wry, dark and humorous with a perfectly pitched line in silliness. Do not expect hard edged drama, do not expect much in the way of mind melting plot twists. Having said that there is enough plot that i was most irritated to miss the final episode. Do not expect much detailed characterisation, certainly not for the supporting cast. Do expect the p..s to be taken out of everything. Do expect to laugh. the botox episode was particularly amusing.

i really hope they make a second series of this, it was kind of hidden late on a Thursday night on channel 5 and i doubt many actually watched it. It made me chuckle more than anything else on recently.

I'm on a quest to watch everything Ruth Wilson has acted in. She's brilliant and steals this show as well. Here she hams it up tremendously as a ditsy/nutty sex pot. She plays the daughter of one of the gun toting old ladies who sets her sights on the son of another (Tom Hiddleston in an early role). While a fun idea this would've been better suited for a 30min short film. Old ladies touting guns and having turf wars in a quaint little town gets really old really quickly and they couldn't possibly have stretched this out further than the two seasons that were made. While fun and sometimes even brilliantly so this has a tiresome undercurrent of male bashing. Points subtracted for that. Besides that this is a mostly fun watch but it does get old and towards the end of the second season my interest had severely waned and I found myself surfing on my smartphone while glancing at the screen every now and then. Watch it if you are curious about early appearances from Tom Hiddleston and Ruth Wilson. Especially Wilson is broad camp to the hilt and she plays it wonderfully.

Suburban Shooutout only has one joke and you guessed it it's the one in the title. If you find it hilarious that middle England housewives are in fact gun slinging gangsters and feel like having that gag rammed down your throat in various different ways for half an hour then this might be the show for you. Most will hate it. Or just not notice it.

The worst aspect is the characterisation. It's non existent. Everyone is one dimensional and there are no motivations based in reality. The relationship between the main dippy woman and her husband, the copper played by Ralph "Finchy" Inneson, is the most stupidly unbelievable thing going.

Basically it's kids' TV. Bad kids' TV at that. Awful and unfunny. Could have been good if there was anything beyond the "hilarious" premise but there's not. Avoid.