Blockbuster

I haven't been on IMDB for three years apparently. It took this show to get me to login and do the password reset etc just so I could post here and say how truly awful I thought this show was. The writing rates a zero, there's a couple good lead actors but they are just coasting in this and the rest of the cast is just plain awful. The jokes are predictable and lame. No wonder this show got canceled pretty much as soon as it started streaming.

It's a shame because it's actually a really promising premise for a comedy series, they just didn't do anything good with it. Like, anything good at all. It's really, really awful. Rates a rare lowest score of "1" from me.

So...Objectively this sucks. BUT. But. It's obvious the cast also know it sucks and are totally phoning it in, which makes for quite the happy accident: Melissa Fumero is full on playing B99's Amy Santiago. She's slipped her on like a broken-in pair of shoes and she's totally unapologetic about it. That has lead me to go meta with my viewing experience and watch it as a piece of so bad it's good B99 AU fanfiction, and honestly I'm loving it. How did Amy end up in this universe? Is it a multiverse situation? Is she in a coma? She's found another cute but immature manboy to have a will-they-won't-they situation with, does that mean every Amy in the multiverse has a type or is it her subconscious trying desperately to remember Jake but unable to picture his face? What's the connection to Blockbuster? Jake still has his membership, could this be the key? Why is Rosa's mom there? The plot is predictable, the dialogue is generic, the characters are bland, but I can totally buy that as just being down to the creative limitations of Amy's subconscious which pushes me further towards the coma theory. If it is all taking part in her subconscious that raises the question of what happened to her? Did it happen on the job? Was it a perp? What's happening at the 99, how crazy is everyone going trying to catch the guy? Is Jake holding it together? It's Jake, he's totally not holding it together. And what does it say about her that she's imagining herself as a Harvard dropout working in a dying franchise video store? She was always super competitive, does she feel like she's settled with Jake and the kid? Or is it just her subconscious screaming at her to wake up before her lack of consciousness destroys her roadmap to becoming the youngest Captain in the NYPD? Seriously. So. Much. *100% headcanon* intrigue going on, get on board, you won't be disappointed.

If you can't get on board though, ok yeah it's just straight up trash, don't waste your time.

Nothing about this show is realistic to working in a video store at all.

A show set in a Blockbuster say in the 90s sounds like the perfect set up for a show.

There's so many negatives to this it would be like reading a chapter from a book to list them all, but worst of all the writing is so, so bad. Nothing is funny. Nothing is original. Nothing is nostalgic.

It feels just like those sitcoms made 20 years ago that only lasted 6 months that no one remembers. Quick quips followed by quick cuts to other actors and repeat. These are great actors, but man none of this is funny.

It's weird how such a good idea that so many were excited about could fail spectacularly. I don't get why they even used Blockbuster at all in this.

I do really like the cast though. I'm not sure why they focus so much on the older lady though.

Ok, I admit the low score is partly because I had much higher expectations, given the cast, but...

The characters are boring and generic, and without quirky characters you can't have a good workplace sitcom. The leads' chemistry can only be described as "people who have known each other for a while", and the banter sounds like it was written by an AI trained on unaired pilots.

I've just watched three episodes, and I can barely recall what was happening in them, except that one of them is about Halloween. It wasn't interesting or engaging enough, and I think I've smiled exactly once. Unlike Brooklyn 99 or Superstore, which manage to combine funny and absurd shenanigans with a social commentary, this show manages neither.

Knowing that the actors are good, I'd definitively say the problem is the writing, both the dialogue and the plot. It might get good by episode 10, but I don't have patience for that.

2 stars for effort. Dont waste your time

Im an 80's kid and when i saw the trailer i was pretty excited. The idea of an nostalgic experience being produced by the very company that destroyed Blockbuster was hilarious.

Exactly who is your target audience here?

People that know what blockbuster is. Mixing that up with present day jokes, if you call them jokes, to make it more familiar to the younger audience kind of defeats the purpose of nostalgia.

Jokes on Netflix as this was absolutely horrendous comedic writing. Zero substance. I cant imagine how executives over at Netflix green lit this after hearing crazy stories of Jo Koy and a few others being turned down. Are they deaf? The comedy is so dry its worse than Space Force.

I can only see this as adding to Netflix's downfall.