Blockbuster (Netflix- 2022) I approached this 10 episode comedy series with some amount of anticipation.......and some amount of fear and loathing.....
Way back in the BQ's history of toiling in the video industry salt mines, I endured (and managed to survive) a hellish year at Blockbuster.
I suffered through the experience just as this emerging evil empire was making its dominating breakthrough in the U.S., forever destroying and wiping out the friendly neighborhood "Mom 'n Pop" video entrepreneurs who began the movie rental industry.
To preserve my sanity, self-worth and health, I fled the Death Star of retailing after a year....to continue on in competitive companies......until Netflix and streaming finally drove a long overdue stake in Blockbuster's soulless, empty heart.
With the now famous exception of one last Blockbuster store in Oregon,, whose plucky management and staff managed to still operate, even though no longer able to latch on to the long gone BB corporate tit.
Which is what this show draws upon on for its premise......
Its primary inspiration, however, comes mainly from shows like "30 Rock" and "Superstore"......where a lovable bunch of wacky, quirky, wisecracking employees grumble, stumble and bumble through various misadventures. And you can hardly keep up with the rapid-fire pop-culture gags that spew out of their mouths as if they were cattle auctioneers......
Naturally, my anticipation came from the curiosity of seeing a depiction of a working Blockbuster, of which I have still painful direct knowledge.
And I hoped the show would end up being funny enough not to trigger my worst memories of the place.....the toxic, evil District Managers, the monthly all night inventories, the corporate Stalinist purges of employees and managers, the phony "no late fees" promotion which like all BB promotions was a scam designed to falsely charge customers' credit cards at every opportunity.
Nope. Overall, it's not funny enough. The cast of supposedly lovable Blockbuster oddballs do spit out rapid-fire DVD movie gags at light speed.......but only a few of these lines ever land enough to make you laugh.
The cast, led by Randall Park as the store manager, works overtime on the borderline hysteria and mania of their characters, but none of them even remotely resembles the real employees I worked with during my BB incarceration.
But every so often, the show does come up some actual moments I could relate to.....the best being the employees attempting the impossible task of assembling a mammoth cardboard display touting a big new kids-family movie. A very accurate rendition......putting those 80 piece nightmares together would stagger the slaves who built the Pyramids......
The only other one of the 30 minute episodes that coaxed a smile out of me showed Park and his staff attempting a store inventory.......with clipboards (!!) and while the store was still open. That told me right away that creator Vanessa Ramos's only real experience with any Blockbuster came from driving by one on her way to work.
(Just so you'll all know.....a Blockbuster inventory consisted of manager and staff using scanning wands on every single movie box's barcode.....and done from 12 midnight to the break of dawn.....)
For the finale 10th episode, the writers concoct multiple apocalypses for the store, including a solar storm that knocks out their power and the disastrous personal appearance of a wildly drunken ex-child star of Christmas movies (Bobby Moynihan, giving it his full SNL 'Drunk Uncle' enthusiasm.) But like the bulk of the show, it plays more desperate than funny.
Anyone hoping for the kind of non-stop, mile-a-minute laughs of a "30 Rock" won't find it on 'Blockbuster', any more than I found any humor in working for the real company.....(may they and all their former execs and DM's rot in hell.....please.)
If by some miracle Netflix allows this show a second season, the showrunners and their cast could all benefit by calming down a little.......and making it more real.
BQ's available for consultation....but for this season 1 & !/2 stars (* 1/2).
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