Written by and starring Carrie Brownstein, of Sleater-Kinney fame, and Fred Armisen, of Saturday Night Live fame, a sketch comedy show set in Portland, Oregon.
Funny, clever and original comedy. Captures well the absurdities of everyday life as well as parodying many organisations and types of people. Often irreverent in the institutions and people they take on.
The humour spans subtle to over-the-top. Therein lies the main problem with the show - the subtler stuff can be too subtle and you miss the joke. Some skits just don't work. In addition, while having regular characters helps familiarity and engagement some of the characters are just plain irritating, limiting engagement. There's also a degree of repetitiveness too.
Brownstein and Armisen are wonderful as the lead actors. While Armisen's comedic credentials are already well known and respected, Brownstein is a revelation. Her background, through Sleater-Kinney, is in socially-orientated rock music, and here she takes on sketch comedy, and does so extremely well.
Kyle MacLachlan is also great as the Major of Portland.
Another great feature of the series is the star-spotting as just about every episode has a major star (or several) in the cast, often as themselves. I can only imagine the clout Brownstein and Armisen must have to get those names on their show.
