Portlandia

This is brilliant. It is so offbeat and quirky..very enjoyable. It may not be for everyone but you'll know right away if it's for you. The writing is so good. This isn't your ridiculous run-of-the-mill network comedy. You have met some of the characters before...self involved do-gooders, aged hippies, counter culture losers, the politically correct, protect the dogs but forget the people, people variously stuck in the 70s,80s and 90s all offbeat and most amusing. Portlandia will not appeal to people who enjoy: Jersey Shore, 2 1/2 Men, WWE. It may appeal to people who like: Walking Dead, Jericho, Breaking Bad. However, give it a go...you will know..."the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland".

Written by and starring Carrie Brownstein, of Sleater-Kinney fame, and Fred Armisen, of Saturday Night Live fame, a sketch comedy show set in Portland, Oregon.

Funny, clever and original comedy. Captures well the absurdities of everyday life as well as parodying many organisations and types of people. Often irreverent in the institutions and people they take on.

The humour spans subtle to over-the-top. Therein lies the main problem with the show - the subtler stuff can be too subtle and you miss the joke. Some skits just don't work. In addition, while having regular characters helps familiarity and engagement some of the characters are just plain irritating, limiting engagement. There's also a degree of repetitiveness too.

Brownstein and Armisen are wonderful as the lead actors. While Armisen's comedic credentials are already well known and respected, Brownstein is a revelation. Her background, through Sleater-Kinney, is in socially-orientated rock music, and here she takes on sketch comedy, and does so extremely well.

Kyle MacLachlan is also great as the Major of Portland.

Another great feature of the series is the star-spotting as just about every episode has a major star (or several) in the cast, often as themselves. I can only imagine the clout Brownstein and Armisen must have to get those names on their show.

This show is incredibly funny. It is very dry, and there is no laugh track, so if you aren't into that type of humor/show, this isn't the show for you. They are particularly good at making fun of hipster overly sensitive liberal culture, while also making fun of the other side of the isle. There is something in each episode for every type of person. Sometimes, the humor isn't obvious. It isn't quotable. Its not something you can go tell your friends or share on twitter. A lot of it relies in the actual plot itself, or the subtle delivery from the actors. Sometimes it makes fun of movies, TV shows, or other traditional forms of entertainment. It doesn't stick to making fun of one type of person, and it doesn't stick to one type of humor. If you have a broad sense of humor or can at least appreciate their varying forms of humor, you'll love this show. If you only think very specific types of humor are funny, you won't like this. This show is brilliant, creative, and doesn't care about if it hurts your feelings.

The first episode I saw of this was the one with Aimmee Mann and Sarah Maclaughlin, I LOL'ed in real life and I am far from a person to LO. Sometimes I might chuckle or give a fees hearty laughs, but this show had my stomach hurting from laughing. My girlfriend was laying on my stomach as we it started to come on and she had to angrily huff as she flounced from laying on my chest. I was laughing so hard and I don't know if my laughter vibrations disturbed her or she is genuinely disturbed by me being happy. Either way I said to her "Come back over here" as I chuckled continually. The show itself is like the best skits of "Saturday Night Live" and each showcases the unique people of Portland and it makes me want to go to Portland and check it out.

Portlandia is a wonderful mockery of a sort of the silliness of the modern age, poking fun at obsessions with food and authenticity and playing with concepts of gender.

Portlandia walks that very thin line between so weird it's funny and too weird to be funny. That means you can see something truly inventive, original sketches, but also that you can watch an entire episode without a single funny thing in it. This has become increasingly true as the series has progressed - as of season 8 the humor has been somewhat patchy, although it is still sometimes brilliant.

If you haven't seen this series, you should definitely check it out. Start with the early episodes to get the most bang for your buck.