Trailer Park Boys: Out of the Park

I enjoyed watching seasons 1 & 2. Not nearly as good as the original, but what can be? It is near impossible to bring back the magic after the original is over (e.g., Arrested Development, Will & Grace, Netflix TPB, etc.)

I won't say that I hate this series, as I found it amusing, especially season 2. However, the one thing that kills this for me is the guy from SwearNet that is in charge of giving The Boys their tasks. Tom Mayhue? Not sure of his name. However, he is such a rank amateur, and such an a**hole, that I find myself having to fast forward through any parts that he is in. And this is not just because he is an a**hole to the boys. He's just the type of guy that has a most punchable face. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why The Boys have not beaten him to a bloody pulp. I would seriously rather have Cyrus giving them their tasks.

This series seemed like an excuse for "Swearnet" to make the guys look like terrible people, over and over. Like, it felt like the script aimed to make Julian seem even more mean spirited, greedy, and pessimistically unlikable than he ever was on the original series. Also, the story itself is highly unbelievable. Ricky Julian and Bubbles are in Europe with no money of their own. Totally relying on this shady guy who is holding their passports hostage. But they don't inform the cops, or beat the living crap out of the guy, they just keep doing his monkey dance without ever being paid. Even the end was unsatisfying, I thought at least someone would knock that guy out, or steal the bus.. But no. They're going to continue to make this low effort garbage for as long as Netflix will pay for it. (Not my opinion, it was basically what they said at the end of the last episode)

Just miserable.

This spinoff takes the boys out of the park and into unfamiliar territory while they complete tasks for Swearnet in the hopes of winning cash. The first season sent them all across Europe as they struggled to just feed themselves. Personally I thought it was hilarious as the boys were clearly out of their element and the tasks were increasingly ridiculous. Even something as basic as the boys not speaking the native languages was funny because that meant anything was bound to happen. Ricky's humor by far shines here as he's in the territory of endless legal dope yet as no money to score some. Julian however imo dragged down the season. He didn't do any of the tasks and just wanted to sit and drink the whole time in the background. Usually he's the chief leader and optimistic, so it killed the fun with him taking the backseat and whining the whole time. Meanwhile I felt pretty bad for Bubbles. The other 2 kind of screwed him over while he did a lot of the work on the various tasks.

Contrast this with season 2 which made a lot of changes. It's obvious the shows creators heard the fans feedback and tweaked accordingly, and yet this season just comes off weaker. They removed the annoying swearnet host which is great, but the ironic downside is now you almost forget the boys are doing the tasks to compete for money since there's no one to guide them/egg them on. They gave Bubbles a bigger arc however now he comes off really selfish right from the start. And it is not a good luck on him. Whereas the audience could easily sympathize for him in season 1, in season 2 he's frankly a jerk that ruins it for Ricky and Julian. The show quickly becomes all about Bubbles and his dreams instead of doing swearnet tasks to make the boys money. He also drops the ball on a lot of task which turns the audience against him. Honestly it made me wonder why they even bothered doing the tasks if the whole focus quickly turned into Bubbles trying to go to outer space or become a country music singer. I'd Julian thankfully has more of a roll instead of just whining in the background.

While it was cool seeing the boys in the USA, it just didn't have the same humor as the first season. Again a bit of the humor was the boys being totally confused by the food, customs, and foreign languages of Europe. Here that's gone since everyone speaks English, eats the same food, knows the same celebs etc. This season is also oddly censored. Nudity is blurred which it's whatever but it just seemed weird that Netflix is in charge of both seasons and was fine with full frontal in your face nudity in season 1 but then blurs it in 2. The overall tone too also just felt more censored. Less sex stuff, less focus on drugs other than one specific scenario, even the tasks are not as racy or extreme. They're definitely more fun, but in a way that anyone would want to do them and not like season 1 where it was almost like fear factor with the raw shock value of omg I can't believe they actually did that?!?!. There's still plenty of swearing, but beyond that this season felt very PG13.

Overall tho, out of the park is definitely a funny twist for the boys with good humor and scenarios. I just wish they didn't tone down season 2 as much.

I love these but after watching a frustrating and disappointing Europe series, I had high hopes for this US series but it was unbearable with Bubbles ranting the whole time. This show gravely went out of balance to Bubbles it should have been his own show and Julian and Ricky were just sidekicks.

I feel like it was too loosely scripted this time. I love improvisation, but there was no structure here at all. They kept repeating themselves (that damn hunger). I can't possibly rate it lower than a six though, because I love TPB nonetheless...