What’cha Watchin’?
Screengrabs from the Chronicle staff
Fri., Sept. 29, 2017
I know, I know, it's the Golden Age of Gory Television Drama, but no matter how compelling the viscera-infused clashes of Game of Thrones/The Walking Dead/Fargo/et al., a TV fan cannot live on blood alone. These comedies will provide your recommended daily allowance of absurdity. Here, the ridiculous is the sublime.
Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later (Netflix)
Sequel set at a 1991 reunion of camp counselors ups the ante on prequel First Day of Camp's surreality by having Ronnie Reagan and Bush 41 scheme to destroy Camp Firewood via nuclear missile. Can Mitch the talking can of vegetables save the day? The all-star cast's sterling commitment to all this inanity is outshone only by their magnificently bad wigs.Documentary Now! (IFC)
Who knew we needed a series sending up classic docs like Grey Gardens and The War Room? So brilliantly and lovingly specific in their spoofery, down to the gorgeous re-creation of the originals' cinematic looks, the parodies written by Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, John Mulaney, and Fred Armisen, and directed by Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono are indispensable viewing for lovers of comedy.Angie Tribeca (TBS)
At long last, the true heir to the Zucker brothers' Airplane! and Police Squad!, a show resolutely unafraid to be dumb, really dumb, that pursues the stupidest sight gags, puns, and double entendres with the zeal real cop shows devote to crime-scene blood spatter. Rashida Jones is the calm center of this rapid-fire idiocy, leading a cast that serves up every joke in a gloriously deadpan style.Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)
When another rebinge of 30 Rock won't fill your Tina Fey hole, this sister series centered on Ellie Kemper's relentlessly chipper doomsday cult survivor should satisfy. It shares the earlier show's production DNA, out-there comic characters, and satiric smarts. Special props to Tituss Burgess' beyond-fabulous Titus Andromedon, with Season 3's Lemonade parody TW.– Arts Editor Robert Faires