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A Fond Farewell To 'Review,' The Funniest Show You Should Have Been Watching
By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 31, 2017
Modified Mar 31, 2017
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 31, 2017
Modified Mar 31, 2017
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After three short seasons, consisting of just 23 half-hour episodes, the world bid adieu (for now?) to Comedy Central's brilliant, one-of-a-kind Review. It was a show about a man who reviewed life for a TV show, except the TV show ended up controlling his life. It was the story of Job as told through the milquetoast prism of Andy Daly's particular brand of comedy. And most importantly, it was the show that made me laugh out loud more than any other television show in recent years (for some context, I'd wager Veep is probably the next on that list).
Review was a starring vehicle for longtime "Oh hey, that guy!" Daly (whom you may recall from Silicon Valley, Eastbound and Down, MADtv, Semi-Pro, Delocated, or countless comedy podcasts). Daly, a New York native, played Forrest MacNeil, a critic whose job is to review real life experiences on his program, "Review With Forrest MacNeil." He's sent questions on the show-within-a-show asking what a divorce—or an orgy, or road rage, or eating an insane amount of pancakes—is like, and he sincerely (and profoundly) tries to review each experience on a scale of one-half to five stars (there is no such thing as zero stars, although there is such a thing as six stars).
That premise alone could have been enough to make it a funny show—but Review got even better, and much darker, as it went along and embraced its continuity, and you began to see how MacNeil's devotion to his job (it could be referred to as extreme criticism) encroached upon his "real" life... until it eventually consumed his entire life, destroyed his marriage, landed him in jail, and regularly put him at the brink of death. And I can't even begin to get into the deep depression I fell into at the death of Clovers, Forrest's invisible friend. Some things are too personal.
I would call season one a perfect season of television, in which an existential crisis culminates in a glorious, painful, pancake binge; an important meeting with a lawyer is hampered by a Batman costume; and the phrase "there all is aching" leads to an unexpected ending. Season two somehow upped the stakes (and the ridiculous laughs) considerably, as Forrest started his own cult, tries to become a little person, ruins his father's life, is buried alive, and goes on trial for murder. The shortened final season, delayed by over a year, dove into some of the mythology of the show (what does co-host AJ do outside work?), came up with some of the funniest bits of the entire series ("Helen Keller"), and also put a devastating ellipses on Forrest MacNeil's reviewing career (and life's purpose).
The show veered into the cringe-comedy lane over and over again, to the point that several friends who I begged to watch the show couldn't quite make it in season two (when you see Forrest's attempts at achieving the "perfect body," you'll understand). But the secret ingredient which always made the show hum along for me was Daly, who turned Forrest into the human equivalent of a puppy dog in khakis (albeit, a very deluded one). He was able to take his natural enthusiasm and twist it ever so slightly until the show became a recurring dark night of the soul (albeit, a gut-busting one), all without losing his affable demeanor.
I don't want to say too much more about the details for anyone who hasn't gotten to discover it yet, but I feel confident in predicting that it will go on to become a cult classic. It's not available on any of the streaming services right now, but you can sign up to watch it at Comedy Central (and really, it's just a matter of time before Netflix or Amazon or whoever gets wise and picks it up).
There is also a chance that Review—or at least the character of Forrest MacNeil—may come back again (it's not a huge spoiler to say that the conclusion of Review leaves him in a hilarious existential k-hole that is more psychologically devastating than it is physically—the show already inflicted all the physical damage on MacNeil that it could!). Daly told Alan Sepinwall that there was plenty of reviews left on the table (though we are grateful they never got to "Bestiality"), and he gave this hopeful quote to AV Club:
“I was just thinking about this the other day: One of the coolest things that’s ever happened in television comedy was when the character of Alan Partridge made the jump from Knowing Me Knowing You to the behind-the-scenes I’m Alan Partridge,” Daly said. “So there is a part of me that wonders if there’s a reverse-Alan Partridge to be done with Forrest MacNeil, that we see him in his next job as the host of a show or something like that. Or, is there the opportunity to do more of the dead-on Alan Partridge, to leave the construct of Forrest doing a television show and follow this man and the rest of his life?”
"I wouldn’t rule out meeting him again in some other context," Daly added. "Because I like him, even though he’s an idiot." We couldn't agree more. Reviewing the best comedy on TV that flew under the radar for far too long? Six stars.
Tagged
andy daly
comedy central
review
television
the funniest show on TV
tv
original
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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