The last 15 years have been a golden age of television, mining generational treasures from Cold War-era Russian spies posing as America’s nuclear family (Americans), a black family fighting for their family heritage by protecting their land (Queen Sugar), a talking horse that curses (BoJack Horseman) and a surreal journey through the mecca of Black Cool (Atlanta). But somewhere along the path of prestige television, humor went from uncomplicated absurdity that anyone could laugh at to an over-intellectualized comedy vehicle that made the drama more bearable. We stopped laughing out thunderous and started laughing in our heads.
That’s why we need more shows like Peacock’s hilarious, self-contained comedy Situated.
Over the course of eight 30-minute episodes, Ruby Yao (Stephanie Hsu) and her true-crime-obsessed best friend AJ (Zosia Mamet) track down every person Ruby has slept with after discovering that all of her sexual partners die in the order in which They showed up. he had sex with her. Searching for a way to stop the murders, the ever-phenomenal Hsu tries to get around the curse by arid fucking behind her jeans, reminiscing about her secure sex games in the time of covid, where she and Search GroupJohn Early tries to talk muddy through N95 masks and tells his ex-boyfriend Simu Liu that they might die soon.
Situated it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but barrels through each drama, flattening it into nothing more than dirt from which humor can grow. Ruby is criticized by all of her former lovers for her thoughtless actions, including sleeping drunk with her boyfriend AJ and lying about it, and any deep self-analysis she may be engaging in is immediately undermined when she makes a vulgar joke about her situation . She’ll yell at the incompetent cop about what a terrible person she is, and then tell him that she instinctively didn’t check to see if his partner was wearing a wedding ring because she immediately noticed that he was gay. Situated it’s a laugh factory with a joke making strategy. It’s a shame they didn’t follow suit with other “comedies”.
We live in a world filled with drama and anxiety Bearan existential deep dive into the psyche of a hitman Barryand a look at grief through the eyes of a children’s TV host Kidding all of them could be nominated for the Golden Globes in the Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy category. All three are spectacular performances, but there are few laughs. Post-Bada fracture, Hollywood has become too enamored with the relatable antihero trope, so much so that it has found its way into almost every genre of television. Why can’t we just go through absurd situations where the only real goal is to find fresh ways to make the audience laugh?
Fortunately, we have programs such as Hooks, Abbott Elementary Schooland, of course, Situated, making sure we remember that even fully formed people can be damn entertaining all the time.
