High concept shows tend to appeal to a very narrow audience, but this one is so bizarre, it goes way beyond its very specialized formula.
What if a guy testified on behalf of the Federal Government against the Russian Mob? His family and he would get new identities, leave their friends, schools and jobs behind and go into the Witness Protection Program. That's the background story of this group.
But then, some documentary filmmakers decided to take these people out of the nameless and bland suburb they lived in and place them in a New York City loft, to have their lives taped and to watch what happens! Welcome to "Delocated," also referred to as "Delocated New York" (as if they might do other versions of this series in other cities).
"Jon" (played by Jon Glaser) is the man in question. His family: wife "Susan" (Nadia Dajani) and son "David" (Jacob Kogan) are extremely reluctant to leave the safety of their quiet life for the possibility of getting killed on the streets of New York by the Russians (these aren't their "real" names, hence the quotation marks).
In order for the filmmakers to shoot this documentary, for their safety, the family must wear ski masks any time they're on camera, which is basically all the time. And they had microchips implanted on their vocal cords to permanently alter the sound of their voices. But the trouble begins as soon as they arrive in NYC, when they find out that their "loft" was just a studio apartment! "Jon" is angered because he put his family in mortal danger so he could live in a cool loft and got this instead. And "Susan" immediately walks out with "David." Let the mayhem begin!
As noted, this is a high concept comedy, as the idea that someone in the witness protection program would suddenly be a TV star in, of all places, New York, is absolutely absurd. Of course, when his wife left, "Jon" gets suggested by his Fed Agent caretaker to start dating, just to add another layer of insanity to the proceedings!
Every episode has some unexpected twist, just like that, which takes the episode in a new and more cockeyed direction, and typically includes "Jon" having battles with the filmmakers or the network producing the show about some element that didn't go according to plan.
Glaser's constant deadpan reactions to how everything happens and the disasters that occur as a part of that day's filming only adds more laughs to the hilarity. I should also note that episodes run between 11 minutes and 22 minutes, so you can easily binge this in a day.
New York plays a part because where else would people find it perfectly normal for a guy in a ski mask to just be wandering around town, working at a copy shop or going on a date at a public park when it's warm enough to wear shirt sleeves. Oh, and being followed by a camera crew! It's great because there's a lot of location shooting all over town, so the show really feels like you're hanging out all over the city with "Jon" and the situations that he finds himself in are as freaky and as ridiculous as the show's original premise.
This series is a brilliant satire of the entire Reality genre and skewers a lot of the tropes that are commonly associated with shows of that type. It also features some surprising cameos and gets in some smacks on other shows.
But I'll be the first to tell you, this is definitely not for everyone.
