Another Period

Mid first-episode and I think I've found my new favorite show, and there's like 3 seasons of it!

I think one misconception of it is that it's just a funny period piece show, or that it's a mock-reality show set in 1900's US history. Intriguing, yes, for a minute. I mean there's only so many hours in a day, sand in a bottle, and what good does that premise do me anyway? Why is that pertinent to the times and the culture? And that's why I took so long to give it a chance. But Leggero's charm pulled me in. And now, I'm laughing every minute. Sometimes for minutes straight. Classic lines smacketing out left and right. It's utter mayhem. It's Marx Brothers. That kind. That good.

So, what is it exactly? It's a rich, snobby reality-show, where the characters are so disconnected from the rest of their species that it's shocking. But have the year be 1900. Basically, if you wanted to watch some of these reality shows, but you've heard they're so stupid, and so many times, that you just know you'd hate it. Yet still, you like to laugh at current shows and not have all of them be thought-provoking podcasts. Then, this show makes it intellectually engaging enough to do so. You get to understand or at least witness the psychosis of the characters while still remembering that they are not necessarily to be admired or emulated. They are not heroes. You are witnessing your time, understanding it, not being indoctrinated into some kind of cult-worship. Maybe that's what the camera lens does, creates heroes.

Have you ever wanted to watch the Office or shows like it, but felt like the office environment got old and dreary after an episode or two? This show is more flamboyant, gaudy, can go anywhere, and it's steeped in history, while still maintaining current humor and hilarious, but somehow astoundingly fitting, contemporary musical soundtrack-segues. The modern editing fluorishes of the segues are also easily appreciated.

And have you ever wanted to watch those old period-piece tv shows, but felt the characters and the drama seemed too unrelatable or otherwise too over-the-top emotional or action-packed? This show is completely unrelatable and more over the top than any of those shows! And it gets away with it, it works, because it's a comedy. Everyone knows it's not really 1900. And everyone knows that we're expecting to be shocked, so when the shock actually comes, we feel it instead of using some of our delight wondering whether it was scripted or how planned out it was. We KNOW this was scripted! And it was scripted by geniuses. It was produced by geniuses. It was conceived by geniuses. Everyone on cast and crew deserves a promotion!!!!!!!!

I've watched a few episodes so far and it's hilarious. It's the same sort of over-the-top, don't-take-it-too-serious sort of humour as The Office was. I mean, it's Victorian era setting with Snoop Dogg intro music.

The characters and dialogue are really funny, and just how they make such fun out of what those times must have been like - even though when looking at it, there's a stark reality that reminds you, some of what you're seeing WAS really how it was.

It's a show about gossiping girls and the comings and goings of their home. I'm a guy and usually HATE those stupid reality housewife and kardashians and all that. But I find the script so funny and the girls so dumb, that I love it. Actually, I like it more than my girlfriend so far, which is weird.

Oh well.

This isn't the best show to come out in a while, but it is surprisingly funny. The gags are pretty hit or miss, but when they hit, they hit hard, and when they miss, it isn't too bad. In many ways this reminds me of Children's Hospital - in that they've taken a genre (Edith Wharton/Downton Abbey/Victorian) and totally lampooned it. There's plenty of absurdist WTF humor as well as send up's of victorian society as a whole.

If you like Portlandia, where every single joke is DOA and is just pure garbage, then I'd stay away from this. It's got some mean spirited humor which I personally find funny. Whereas Portlandia is all simple safe and tired over trod material and unfunny jokes that (much like SNL) go on for way too long. God I hate Portlandia.

This very silly show imagines Downton Abbey with the classy upper classes replaced by blithering idiots.

The show is funniest in the way these rich people treat their servants, which is as considerably less than human, as when a servant is whimsically renamed "Chair" by one of her employers.

The wealthy are idle and clueless, and episodes often center around a sibling rivalry that the dumber of the two rarely seems aware of.

The show loves to push the bounds of decency, with characters being horribly racist and crude humor that often cheerfully crosses over the line, as in an episode that mocks rape (which one of the reviewers here is very angry about).

It gets away with this because it knows what it's doing. Underneath the silly, broad comedy, is a fairly sharp satire of class privilege. That combination of cheap jokes and smart comedy is, for me, irresistible.

"Another Period" is a strange reality show-like creation for The Comedy Channel. And, while I really enjoy it, I think it's a hard sell for its audience...which surprises me since normally developing a large audience is a must for television shows. The only way it would make sense is that someone in charge there loves the show and doesn't mind that it isn't all that popular. Considering they also make "Drunk History", this would make sense.

As for the show, it's a faux reality show that follows the most worthless mega-rich family of the Edwardian era...the Bellacourts. They are the embodiment of everything rotten in the worst of the worst wealthy plutocrats. Every vice, every possible instance of selfishness and every chance the show can take to expose them for the worthless human beings they are...that's pretty much the show. And, it does this with a nice attention to historical details...something that history lovers, like myself, can appreciate. Well worth seeing and there is certainly nothing like it.

FYI--The show is EXTREMELY adult at times. Many crude moments...too many for the kids.