Avenue 5

The first three episodes have the same effect as the character played by Hugh Laurie. A fake American shell that hides his British origins and the whole thing feels kind of false and goofy. The initial disappointment then grows precisely because Iannucci is known for dropping the best jokes of his generation into his scripts practically out of the blue, and because of their frequent absurdity and brutality, they often strike completely unexpectedly. Whereas in Avenue 5, the punchlines of jokes are cut for laughs, used for laughs, pointed out by turning off the music or with a straight camera zoom. Fortunately, from episode 4 onwards, the characters get going (mainly due to the fact that they are no longer capable of development) and the whole bizarre circus starts to click perfectly. A lot of scenes are then only funny because of how out of place everyone seems in them, and in fact the whole show starts to turn into a compilation of working running jokes. Though I cringed at the beginning, by the end I was giggling pretty much constantly and letting the wacky sets and costumes get to me because they fit the context of the lampooned society of über-consumerist late capitalism full of fake, confused cretins. (23/08/2020)

Well, I have to say that Avenue 5 isn’t as bad as it seems. Quite the opposite. Hugh Laurie nicely delivers some nicely dry British humor and Josh Gad on the other hand points at American stupidity. These two kinds of humor are combined here and create what we could on one hand call simple entertainment but on the other, it has some slight Red Dwarf vibes. But don’t worry, I mean really slight – so no one would crucify me for this comparison. Nevertheless I have to say that user cinefob was right as well. I really was surprised in a good way. I’ve missed similar kind of series lately. (12/09/2020)