Hunderby

While this show had its moments and did occasionally make me laugh, for the most part I found it frustrating and difficult to watch at times. The main female character is helpless and meek and completely unwilling to so much as speak up for herself, allowing herself to be easily influenced and exploited by almost every other character. Almost every single character in the show is completely self-interested and manipulative to an almost obscene level, and many of them have a tendency to cling to others who very clearly do not want them. There was not enough heart in the show to get away with the level of cruelty between characters, most of whom I found either frustrating, annoying, or just unbearably manipulative (oftentimes all three). Julia Davis's character is one of the most despicable television characters I think I've ever seen.

And while the ending of the first season was more or less satisfying, I found the second season beyond aggravating and completely unnecessary. The final two episodes should never have been made, and I cannot even express in words how much I absolutely HATED how the show ended. I wish it was possible to just erase the entire second season from my memory. All in all, I found the show to be far more frustrating than funny.

The show hinges around crude humor and an absurd level of cruelty towards the generally useless protagonist. While often forced and awkward, the show does make use of it's otherwise clunky and unnatural pace to make amusing meta-jokes that let the tempo seem intentional.

If you can handle a show that falls back on displays of melodrama and grossness to launch most of its jokes, (though intermingled with witty one-liners), you'll likely find this hilarious.

I could see shades of Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Tom Jones, Wurthering Heights, and several others. I'm sure there were others that I just haven't read, so could not appreciate the spoof.

I'm an American who loves Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charles Dickens, Daphne du Maurier...the kind of books (and movies) that helped create the tropes this show mocks relentlessly and hilariously.

You get such tropes as: the perfect and incomparable dead wife, conniving housekeeper, huge terrible secret, clueless vicar, physically wretched but eternally optimistic and naive character, deformed villain, straight man with curiously close male servant - the list goes on and on. The show isn't "cruel," it's making fun of the stereotypical characterizations gothic novels loved to use to create tension. And some of those characterizations were based in really messed up ideas from the 1800-1900s, like that ugliness was an external reflection of evilness or bad character, or that virginity was the most important attribute in a wife (who cares who she is as a person?). It's making fun of the ideas in those stories that are abhorrent or cliche to us now.

In the first episode, Helene is set to marry a much older pastor, and he tells her that if she wasn't entering the marriage as a virgin, he would of course have to stone her to death by his own hand 😔. I laughed out loud and was hooked from that moment.

But it's probably not funny if you don't know the stories it's mocking, because satire relies on familiarity with the subject matter. It's "dumb" humor in the vein of Scary Movie, Walk Hard, Hot Shots, Robin Hood Men in Tights, Blazing Saddles, etc. The jokes are rooted in all the OTHER media you've watched and the stereotypes they're built on.

If you've ever wished Young Frankenstein could have a baby with Wuthering Heights, this one's for you.

My new guilty pleasure. Love this wicked, funny series. I hope they do a second season!

The characters are delightfully messed up, the writing witty and clever. Julia Davis steals every scene with her devilish smirk and deadpan delivery. The pastor is my next favourite, laugh at loud lines coming from his mouth.

The writers did a good job of building such complex characters in only several episodes. They are so flawed but still likable.

If you are a fan of period pieces and humour, you will love this. Not to be missed.