I’m always looking for a new comedy whether it be a movie or a show. The real good comedies seem to be few and far between these days – for me, at least. It’s been a while since I laughed hard enough consistently to refer to something as a great comedy. Since that has been the case, I have leaned on some reliable shows from Seinfeld to Brooklyn 99. In comes BLOCKBUSTER, the latest original comedy series from Netflix. It’s from the creators of Brooklyn 99 and it’s got a nice cast led by Randall Park, Melissa Fumero, and J.B. Smoove so I was pretty excited about it – did it live up to my expectations? Let’s see.
Blockbuster is in the midst of shutting down and franchisee, Timmy (Park) has to figure out a way to keep his employees engaged as they eventually end up being the last Blockbuster. The overall theme of the show is how this unique team made up of people of all ages has to navigate dealing with their jobs potentially being on the line and their relationships within the store. Timmy has to come up with new ideas and does so with the help of Eliza (Fumero) and implements those ideas as a team with the other employees.
The show is set in the present day, so there will be some more current movie titles on the shelves, but several older movie references as well. I thought they were on the right track with some of the references, but there weren’t nearly enough for my liking. The mix of different ages on the staff works, but not well as relationship building is not at the forefront for this one. There is even a really weak attempt at showing a relationship between husband and wife. It’s a real missed opportunity as I would have loved to have known more so that I could care more about these characters.
Park and Fumero do great with what they were given and Smoove was fun as the strip mall owner. The problem is, that for a comedy this one just isn’t funny enough. There are some jokes that land and several references will at least make you smile, but this series lacks consistency and the flow from episode to episode seems very uneven. Perhaps the funniest thing is the irony of Netflix producing a show called Blockbuster. If you insist on checking this one out, the episodes are only about 30 minutes long.