Excellent Modern Sitcom “The Sex Lives of College Girls” Returns in Full Force (Review)

One of the most surprising television premieres of last fall was The Sex Lives of College Girls on HBO Max — funnily enough, it’s also the show you’re most embarrassed to say you’ve watched or are interested in, especially in public. One might think that the title is specifically engineered to provoke awkwardness, but I see it as a move to normalize sex in pop culture and rid us of taboos that have been prevalent in media and society for centuries.

Image courtesy of Warner Bros

The second season of The Sex Lives of College Girls picks up very quickly after Season One, when our central Essex College freshmen exposed a cheating scandal spearheaded by one of the school’s fraternities. After Thanksgiving break, they find themselves living with the consequences, including (but not limited to) an informal ban from all campus parties.

Stellar Spacecom “Avenue 5” Returns in Spectacular Fashion (Review)

At the very start of the pandemic, many of us turned to television and film for both the entertainment value and a reprieve from potential boredom. Luckily, Hollywood is always in constant operation, and there was a whole mess of content filmed before the shutdown that was just waiting to be released. But what about the films and series released at the very start of COVID-19’s rampage upon the world? Does anyone remember Bad Boys for Life, Dolittle or Birds of Prey, regardless of quality?

Image courtesy of Warner Bros

Television was even worse off. The season finale of Avenue 5, a space-set comedy series created by master of satire Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, The Death of Stalin), aired on March 15, 2020, just three days after worldwide cancellations and closures led to an unprecedented global lockdown. “Fell under the radar” doesn’t even begin to cover it, especially when everyone’s minds were everywhere else (remember, this was about a week before everyone became absolutely obsessed with Tiger King).

This is all to say that, after several delays, the second season of Avenue 5 is upon us and (just like in 2020) nobody is talking about it. It picks up almost directly after its predecessor, which followed the crew and passengers of the titular interplanetary cruise ship that gets knocked slightly off-course by an artificial gravity mishap — the only problem is, that minuscule shift added three years to the travel back to home planet Earth. Season Two covers the aftermath, in which five extra years of travel time were accidentally added by an impulsive waste jettison.

“Human Resources” is a Workplace Comedy with a Big Mouth (Review)

Google has decided that the genre of Netflix’s Human Resources, a spinoff of their hit animated series Big Mouth, is “ribaldry.” They don’t label it as a sitcom (which it absolutely is), and there’s no hint of it being an adult animated series. Their use of “ribaldry” is accurate, though — like its parent series, Human Resources is a foul-mouthed and indelicate series that explores the complexities of human emotions through their physical representations.

Image courtesy of Netflix

A spiritual successor to Big Mouth Season 5’s shattering of the fourth wall, Human Resources brings back many characters from Big Mouth, most of them monsters that influence and symbolize the feelings of the humans they’re assigned to. Human Resources isn’t so much about the humans, as its parent series is, but instead covers the interpersonal lives and relationships between the monsters, structuring itself as a more straightforward sitcom.

“What We Do in the Shadows” Season One Review: Vamps on the Town

In my viewing experience, television series adapted from films have had a high success rate. Shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance honor their source material and are all thoroughly enjoyable on their own. However, they’re all adapted from relatively high-profile films and stories; what about the series based on smaller movies? Are they less enjoyable because their parent films aren’t as well-known?

The answer to that is a resounding “No!” One of my favorite shows to come out in recent years has been “What We Do in the Shadows,” a half-hour comedy that follows a group of vampires that live on Staten Island in the modern day. It’s based on a film of the same name, which was co-directed by Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok, Jojo Rabbit) and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Concords). The film, set in New Zealand, is hilarious on its own, but the spin-off TV series is clearly having a lot of fun expanding the lore and building upon the world established by the film, being one where vampires live together in homes around the world.

“Upload” Season One Review: Sitcom or Edgy Drama?

Once again, pop culture and streaming television have predicted the future, and while we’ve seen a lot of apocalyptic scenarios on screen, the future depicted in Amazon Prime’s new series Upload is one I wouldn’t mind living in.

As is the case with most future worlds, technology has essentially consumed society. Cars are nearly fully automated (with built-in artificial intelligence), virtual reality is widely used, and watches do everything your phone can (sound familiar?). But if you had the choice, would you “upload” your consciousness to a digital afterlife instead of dying?

Community 2x11 “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas” Review: A Series Acme

I started binging Community the day it went on Netflix, and so far, I haven’t been disappointed. Somehow this show is the most unique sitcom I’ve ever seen, and it just keeps getting better. One of the standout episodes in my viewing binge so far came midway through Season 2, and I’m sure this episode will continue to stick out in my brain whenever I think of Community’s trademark “special episodes.”

The episode in question is, of course, “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas.” Brought to life entirely through stop-motion animation, the episode stays true to its title by focusing on Abed (Danny Pudi), who is having ‘delusions’ that the entire world is now animated. This continues the running joke of Abed being constantly aware that they exist in the world of a TV show, and allows for the show to accommodate situations that a live-action budget wouldn’t cover.