Four in the Morning

Say what you want about this show and I know a lot of people didn't like it, in fact I'm still not sure whether I liked or just tolerated it as an interesting TV oddity, but you can't deny that at least this show was trying to do something different. It may not have worked out but thank you CBC for at least trying to do something risky and different instead of the usual garbage you churn out!

First, "Canadian" is not a knock. Do I need to point this out (cough cough)? Unfortunately, hockey has thus far been the best CanTV. Not saying this is better than hockey, just that calling out something as "Canadian" is not a knock... a knock on us, that is.

This show is different ~ but how is that a bad thing (as in a 4.something rating as of now)? The two chicks are good foils; William is a strong straight man to these girls (as in stock character); and Bondurant, well: this character is where performance and strong writing come together to make a show. We've never seen anything like this.

Plot, but not arc, driven; performance but not character; post-campy but not cliché... c'mon!!! Stop dumping on this and someone give us another season.

Have just watched episode one and immediately find myself with no appetite for any more. This follows four friends who navigate their way through modern day...blah blah blah blah. This is not my cup of tea in the slightest.

I do not identify with any of the characters nor can I bring myself to empathize with them or even care how things turn out for them. Three of the four main characters exhibit chronic verbal diarrhea while the fourth member of the group seems to have the task of looking confused and shocked at what his comrades have just come out with. He's not the only one.

I found myself irritated and disengaged as wave upon wave of pointless rants were delivered without much in the way of emotion. I would guess this will have quite limited appeal but I'll probably be proved wrong on this one. The show reminds me of 'Bored to Death' but even that show had some charm and genuinely funny moments that would hook the viewer in.

The acting is fair (they had a LOT of lines to learn), it's filmed very well and there may be improvements as the series unfolds. I won't be spending any time finding out though. Not my kind of comedy, no sir.

This is one of the worst new shows I have ever seen on TV. Had the sense it is trying way too hard to be all edgy and cool and cutting edge and to impress or shock us or engage us with its use of the f-bomb, snorting coke, etc. But it all just comes across as completely forced, self-aware, artificial, pretentious and self-absorbed. Couldn't feel anything for any of the characters and didn't care one iota about their incessant ranting, their lives, their issues. The character of Bondurant is particularly annoying and insincere. No one talks like that. He seems like he's not even in the same show. But all of the characters are un-relatable and the acting leaves a great deal to be desired across the board. There is absolutely nothing in the dialogue that is engaging or that makes us want to know more about these characters. Go back to the drawing board, CBC - this show is a bust.

I really enjoyed this show and was surprised to see the negative reactions and the low IMDb score. Although I can see how the show might not be to everyone's tastes, and I think these are some of the things which are polarizing to some: - It's not really plot-driven. - Heavy use of metaphors and symbols. - The dialogue can seem pretentious and overacted. - Fast-paced and hard to follow at times.

I actually enjoyed the fact that the show doesn't try to push a clear narrative(or rather, that the narrative is not the central aspect of the show), almost all shows already do that: "I'm breaking up with you" "Why?" "Because this and this" Blah blah, "I lost my job!", blah. I'm sick of the literal nature of most television shows. With this show I just listened, sometimes sentences or a particular phrasing stood out to me, and I was not really concerned with the concrete narrative. Occasionally I would hear a sentence that had some relevance to me, and other times metaphors would stand out. Sometimes I even laughed. The obvious use of symbolism seemed very honest too me. Whereas most shows have structure and underlying messages, in most cases these are completely trivial, only seeming profound because they are hidden. This show puts it all out there. Ironically the pretentious and over- complicated language makes it less pretentious than similar shows which have simple "relatable" dialogue and situations but pretend to deal with serious subjects.

TLDR; If you enjoy watching something which is weird, possibly requiring some getting used to, and does not take itself too seriously, then this show is worth a try. Some episodes are better than others, but the show is definitively unique (at least I have not seen anything quite like it before).