Blockbuster

I'm a millennial born in the late eighties, so Blockbuster was a huge cornerstone of my childhood and teenage years. The people there knew my brother and I by name, and even gave us some free copies of things over the years because we would rent them so often. I have a huge nostalgia for the people and place as a result, so I thought I would really love this show, especially since I loved Superstore, which has some related producers/writers.

It's sadly nowhere near as good as Superstore. I don't think it's self-aware or clever enough to be airing on a place like Netflix, given that Netflix is the biggest reason why Blockbuster went out of business in the first place. The actors all do a pretty decent job, but the jokes just don't land as well as they could or should, often leaving me just smiling rather than laughing out loud.

Having said that, it's also nowhere near as bad as a 1, 2, or 3-star show, which is the majority of the ratings on here. That's shockingly low for what's actually here, so I'm not quite sure where those numbers are coming from since it's a very inoffensive comedy. The worst you could call it is mediocre.

It may be worth a watch if you're an elder millennial or Gen X and have that nostalgia, but I wouldn't expect it to be as good as Superstore.

Ok, I admit the low score is partly because I had much higher expectations, given the cast, but...

The characters are boring and generic, and without quirky characters you can't have a good workplace sitcom. The leads' chemistry can only be described as "people who have known each other for a while", and the banter sounds like it was written by an AI trained on unaired pilots.

I've just watched three episodes, and I can barely recall what was happening in them, except that one of them is about Halloween. It wasn't interesting or engaging enough, and I think I've smiled exactly once. Unlike Brooklyn 99 or Superstore, which manage to combine funny and absurd shenanigans with a social commentary, this show manages neither.

Knowing that the actors are good, I'd definitively say the problem is the writing, both the dialogue and the plot. It might get good by episode 10, but I don't have patience for that.

2 stars for effort. Dont waste your time

Im an 80's kid and when i saw the trailer i was pretty excited. The idea of an nostalgic experience being produced by the very company that destroyed Blockbuster was hilarious.

Exactly who is your target audience here?

People that know what blockbuster is. Mixing that up with present day jokes, if you call them jokes, to make it more familiar to the younger audience kind of defeats the purpose of nostalgia.

Jokes on Netflix as this was absolutely horrendous comedic writing. Zero substance. I cant imagine how executives over at Netflix green lit this after hearing crazy stories of Jo Koy and a few others being turned down. Are they deaf? The comedy is so dry its worse than Space Force.

I can only see this as adding to Netflix's downfall.

Nothing about this show is realistic to working in a video store at all.

A show set in a Blockbuster say in the 90s sounds like the perfect set up for a show.

There's so many negatives to this it would be like reading a chapter from a book to list them all, but worst of all the writing is so, so bad. Nothing is funny. Nothing is original. Nothing is nostalgic.

It feels just like those sitcoms made 20 years ago that only lasted 6 months that no one remembers. Quick quips followed by quick cuts to other actors and repeat. These are great actors, but man none of this is funny.

It's weird how such a good idea that so many were excited about could fail spectacularly. I don't get why they even used Blockbuster at all in this.

I do really like the cast though. I'm not sure why they focus so much on the older lady though.

Yeap, the irony on this is gigantic.

I made a HUGE effort to like this, since I really enjoy Park and Fumero. Also, the main purpose of the show was very intriguing for me.

The pilot episode wasn't funny at all, but i thought that's ok, because many many shows kind of fails on the pilot, since the characters are not comfortable yet, but from the next ones on, get better (Friends and Big Bang Theory are two good examples of this).

The thing is, I saw the second, then the third, and no single laughs were given at all. By the middle of the fourth episode (see, I was REALLY trying), I just couldn't bare this anymore. I felt really bad for the actors, because they seemed like that stand comedy that the host didn't managed to get the audience, but anyway has to stay on stage till the end of the show.

Anyway, it's really ironic how the company that ended Blockbuster's business, had the ability to do it one more time.