Watched a new Netflix original tv series. They’ve had some really good ones like Orange is the new black and the one with kevin spacey. This new one, something with summer camp in the title, has all these people in it that were famous for doing comedy (ok, so most of them were SNL cast from the first season in a decade that they didn’t suck entirely). I guess they gave up careers doing funny shit to make a bad skit into eight half hour shows. Um, not like they didn’t have practice. Some of them didn’t seem like they done working.
There was this Smiths song about a thousand years ago, just listening to it gave you permanent mascara runs, the lyrics were something like “… girlfriend in a coma, I know it’s really serious …” The Netflix series was almost as relevant as the song. I think the song was supposed to be smarmy or snarky or possibly smarky. The series, I believe, was trying to be funny. In my humble opinion the song succeeded in being smarky, the series not so much.
I watched this other Netflix thing, though I don’t think Netflix took responsibility, I think ABC family hitched their dead mule to that broke down wagon. The cast were all nobodies but they did a really good job of acting. The script however … well, it wasn’t badly written so much as badly conceived. It was like a very well done after school special, a bit racier, quit a bit better acted, than your usual after school special, but, it was about cyber-bullying.
Now your after school specials about drugs or sex or, I don’t know, rock and roll, might actually have some viewers who really haven’t had any one or combination of the above, but even those kids know the story is bullshit. Cyber bullying though? There are second generation kids who grew up with the internet, you can’t do an after-school style morality play about cyber-bullying with even the smallest hint of bullshit. This one smelled like the streets of Borneo before a big match. The one things that disturbed me the most plot wise though, especially since this movie was trying hard to take the moral high ground; this girl tries committing suicide by taking pills (though as everyone shows up to intervene it looks like a handful of benedryl that comes out of her fist, and nothing to suggest anything stronger in the family bathroom medicine cabinet). The friendly Doctor who play a pivotal moral role by running a teen group prescribes tranquilizers with a wink telling her mom they ought to keep her sleeping for a few days. Seems like the writers missed watching a few after school specials.
My opinion is that both of these things on Netflix were, at best, ill conceived. You are welcome to your own opinion, if it’s different than mine, though, you’re wrong. I won’t love you any less, but I will patronize you more.
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