Everything I've seen and read has suggested it's unanimous, that everyone finds this show sucks. I'm a little surprised to see some 9 and 10 star reviews, I suspect they're planted fakes to raise the average rating (which I'm surprising is as high as 5.8 out of 10 still, I didn't think they'd add THAT many fakes). I was also surprised to see IMDb list a second season, another review says it was renewed before the pilot aired! That's the only thing that makes sense. How foolish is that, to not even see how it does? Seems like some people (including network execs) just love Jon Hamm so much they assume this must be great. Me, never heard of him, never saw Mad Men - seemingly how everyone loves him. Only thing *I* saw was he had an ad campaign for SkipTheDishes, a Canada-only UberEats, all with a weird theme of him pretending to be a Canadian. Had a vibe we're supposed to recognize him, took ages before I discovered his name and that he's known from Mad Men.
This show seems to count on making EVERYONE weird with odd quirks to provide writing opportunities. One problem: They established these quirks in the pilot and never re-establish them, so people have to remember them from the pilot or understand them the rare time they come up. The main guy Flute (Jon Hamm) seems to have this magic ability to imagine the crime scene from clues, imaging the event in some virtual environment. They never establish if he's just super observant or he actually has a magic power. They don't even use it every episode, despite being the main character, and a show depicting his investigations! Otherwise he's rather dim, and without this ability he'd be a rather lacklustre detective. Seems to be referencing Inspector Clouseau from Pink Panther, somewhat lucking into solving cases. His son Stan has an imaginary friend, a bad influence skeleton with flaming eyes Mr. Flesh, borne from his deep emotional damage from both his parents regularly neglecting him. They never say again that Mr. Flesh is imaginary, merely use it on occasion and leave it to the viewers to remember or realize nobody else can see him. Flute has a mentor who's an inmate working as a teacher, clearly based heavily on Hannibal Lector in Silence Of The Lambs (if they let him work as a teacher on work release). His partner is Robocop if he was a big friendly schlub who lacks confidence. Or Cyborg from Justice League/Teen Titans with these modifications. Flute's ex/Stan's mom was raised by bears and has significant bear influences for no apparent reason. His boss is so attractive and charming he wears a parka all the time to lower his attractiveness and not get swarmed. THAT guy's boss (I'm a little fuzzy on the hierarchy) is a TALL overconfident woman who's a great believer in conspiracy theories and is highly unevolved (stuff like refusing to use recycled paper). Again, never mentioned but comes up once or twice, hopefully viewers remember. Oh, and the town of Grimsburg is cursed so LOTS of murders happen, again not mentioned outside of the pilot. (They stole the title sequence joke idea from Simpsons, Bob's Burgers, Great North and others, where here the town sign always has a different slogan based on all the murders).
TOO many gimmicks, not enough backing them up. I rather enjoy Mr. Flesh and the professor, both amusingly warped, not surprising both are voiced by the wonderful Alan Tudyk. Only reason I added 1 star. All the murders making it clearly aimed at adult viewers helps, but not enough to add any more stars. It really has seemed like this show is doomed, so I've been watching while it's here, but the confirmed second season makes me wonder if they can unconfirm and end this mess.
5 out of 8 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink