Overall (this isn’t a review I swear), I enjoyed a lot of the show, like Dunphy said in his email, there are cliches, and there are sound issues and what not, but you can ignore them, I liked season one more than season two story wise, but season two was better production wise in my opinion. I appreciated it a lot as a film and production person myself who briefly directed a talk show like the one they do in the show while I was in HS, so was able to relate to a lot and that increased my enjoyment of the show.
For season one, my favorite character was Theo, mostly because he was the most funny out of all of them, and also the indirect victim in a lot of the drama. He was the laid back one having to deal with his friends constant division and bickering, as his friend group crumbles around him. He was the character most blatantly “Comic Relief” with the most over the top jokes and bits, which I found the funniest moments of the whole season. My favorite part of the show was the characters and the complexity of their relationships, although If I had to think of a least favorite character, and although I liked certain aspects of them both, Kate and Ben both seemed to think very emotionally, obviously Kate breaking up with Ben in a terrible way, and Ben treating her terribly for 95% of the season, even though he knew it hurt her and his other friends. I actually think I would enjoy hanging out with this group, as long as they are not in the social state they are in for most of the season (haha). They are all production and film geeks like myself, and I enjoyed all of Ben’s movie references. I found myself really associating myself in some way with everyone of them, and I think I would enjoy being part of that group.
For season two I did not find myself associating with the characters as much, probably because they were all older grad students while season one were people closer to my age. I liked the Alex character, partially because I sit next to the actor in political science and we have talked about the show and his role (And Yankees baseball). Although, I thought his character was funny. Obviously, Brayden was a dick. Although I liked him and found his film references as funny as Ben’s from season one. A least favorite character would be Alexis, I just thought she was annoying and handled the moving out situation the wrong way. Like I said, I have less affinity with this group because of their age, and their drama is a little bit different than I’m used to, so I couldn’t see myself being able to be part of their group as much as I did with the season 1 group.
I thought the last episode was the best part of season one, it wrapped everything up very well in a sweet way, with all the characters doing what they should have done earlier and discussing their issues with one another, and even even though you could say there is cliches, I think they are some of the cliches that are good and it all wrapped up the plot very well.
For season two my favorite scene was the first one with all of Brayden’s goofy directing requests, like asking for a “Kubrick”, and meaning it as code for a wide shot. My favorite episode was #8, I thought it had a lot of funny moments, and although the hacking thing was a little nuts I thought it was cool for some reason, although by far my favorite moment of the show was what I assume was meant to be Theo’s cameo when he takes Brayden’s Coke, that was great.
I think the season one group went back to how it was before Ben and Kate broke up, and for some reason I feel like they had the kind of thing going that they will end up getting back together at some point, because Kate’s whole “Breaking up for writer’s block” thing would make sense to be temporary. Sam will eventually work things out with her parents, but she seemed like the kind of person that could deal with the whole situation with or without direct approval from her parents. In general I think they’ll all be fine.
Season two wrapped up a little less open ended than season one, I guess it seems like they are only going one way from here. Alex and Alexa are moving out, and Mia and Colin will start dating. Season one wrapped with them all hugging but with things left unanswered, like we don’t know where Bracha will wind up in all of this.
The one thing that keeps coming to me is a goofy tagline: “Be Unproductive…Watch Unproductive”. If it’s one thing I myself have had issues with regarding my film stuff is getting it out there for people to watch it, I usually just post it on social media over and over again. Although I wasn’t around when the first two seasons came out, and don’t what what they may have done to advertise for them, I think a lot of students would find it cool that there is a student run show that is shot on campus, and you could definitely take advantage of that by advertising around campus, because people really like when they see things on screen they can associate with on a personal level. To relate to the concepts we read about in the textbook individual differences theory explains that people with different characteristics will be affected in different ways by something in media, this can relate to that because Brooklyn College students would enjoy a show about Brooklyn College more than students who go to NYU. Whenever something is shot in my neighborhood I watch it, regardless of what it is because it is cool to see the areas I know on-screen albit briefly. I think if this were to be well advertised you could have students going “Hey they shot that by that bench I did homework on next to the pond!” or something like that. In general a web series is a good format, not that a production has much of a choice, but the internet and streaming is becoming more and more popular for watching shows, Youtube has that paid service now with original content, and I think the continuing convergence between internet and film/TV will continue and most shows in the future will be on some kind of paid streaming service.
Ryan Schwach Mass Media Blog 