Fantasmas

Julio Torres never presents a cliche' subject. Go with the flow, and enjoy every delicious moment. Surprises around every single corner awaits. Stories within stories, within stories. He packs each half hour segment like a can of sardines with his enchanting plots. His wardrobe and background settings are done with an artist's vision of both beautiful colors and unique geometric shapes. He may have changed his hair color of choice from blue to orange, but his signature creativity is still woven in the wickedly absurd vignettes. The new characters that he introduces to us like Chester the driver, played by Tomas Matos or Steve Buscemi, as the unforgettable Q, are hysterical! I can't wait for the next episode to come an take me into his magically twisted dreamland of delight.

This is a sketch comedy show of how Julio's brain works. It's about his "profession" and how he is not any "one thing" in life. He is an artist that struggles with the question, "so what do you do?".

These sketches go far down a rabbit hole of fleeting ideas, with stunning makeup, costumes, and set design. Sketches range from bizarre sitcoms to reflective narrative moments on what it means to be an artist or creative person in the modern world.

For those who do not know Julio Torres, he is often associated with the term "magical realism". I'm assuming that if he ever wanted to be confined to a genre that would be appropriate.

Lovely use of color and obviously very creative, but having seen one episode, I am unlikely to see any more of them. It's surrealistic and quirky, with some characters that are trying to be perfectly normal and Julio Seeming to be puzzled by life.

But he's a consultant to various companies starting with Crayola where he advises them to create a crayon that's transparent. He points out that a glass of water is transparent so how would you color it? Of course, the very glass of water he points to has blue edges to it, and anybody who's ever, painted a glass of water and blues that work quite well for it.

He has a robotic creature who keeps house for him and nags in the other things, including the eviction notices he's been getting. He's too busy trying to find a lost earring and apparently that's going to be the theme of the whole series.

Well, good luck, Julio. I hope things work out for you and for the TV show.

I think that that the negative reviews are borne from people either not understanding or trying to apply logic to what is undoubtedly the quirkiest, funniest series I've ever seen. Highly unconventional, totally bizarre, and above all, hilarious, this series is without logic - don't try to understand it, just strap yourself in for a helluva ride. The humour is not quite American, not quite British, but takes the best elements of both. I was spellbound by it, unable to recall what the original 'plot' was, as the story flew off it multiple tangents, each more surreal and ridiculous than the last. Try it, you won't regret it.

I felt like I needed to give this a rating even after 2 episodes. From the set design and costumes to the multidimensional characters and stories they tell all within a world that can only make you think of things like Alice in wonderland or any novel by Vonnegut. I don't want to give anything away but the show does have a story that is certainly absurd at first glance but wholly satirical on every detail it presents about certain mundanities in our day to day lives that really are ridiculous when given further consideration.

Excited to see more of that this world is like. Expect to be weirded out at times, but please give it a shot if you're at all interested.