Another Period

"Another Period" is a strange reality show-like creation for The Comedy Channel. And, while I really enjoy it, I think it's a hard sell for its audience...which surprises me since normally developing a large audience is a must for television shows. The only way it would make sense is that someone in charge there loves the show and doesn't mind that it isn't all that popular. Considering they also make "Drunk History", this would make sense.

As for the show, it's a faux reality show that follows the most worthless mega-rich family of the Edwardian era...the Bellacourts. They are the embodiment of everything rotten in the worst of the worst wealthy plutocrats. Every vice, every possible instance of selfishness and every chance the show can take to expose them for the worthless human beings they are...that's pretty much the show. And, it does this with a nice attention to historical details...something that history lovers, like myself, can appreciate. Well worth seeing and there is certainly nothing like it.

FYI--The show is EXTREMELY adult at times. Many crude moments...too many for the kids.

I really love the cast for this, most of them are returning from the less well known web series "burning love" which was a spoof of the bachelorette type shows, also very good if you like shows like this. This one so far is not quite as spot on with its critique of reality TV but promises even more surreal wackiness, more in the vein of NTSF:SD:SUV or Children's Hospital, much of which the cast are also involved in. So its no surprise that this is already batshit crazy and full of eccentricities, i basically just watch everything they make recently because its bound to be hilarious. I wish June Diane Raphael played the part of the bitchy older girl, and the crazy blond one is a crackup but other than that the supporting cast are definitely a show stealer. David Wain is once again killing it as a foppish not-so closet homosexual.

My favorite line so far is "your new name is chair". The persistent and creative abuse of their servants makes for delightful comedy. Indubitably.

Also, cocaine wine. Nuff said.

This very silly show imagines Downton Abbey with the classy upper classes replaced by blithering idiots.

The show is funniest in the way these rich people treat their servants, which is as considerably less than human, as when a servant is whimsically renamed "Chair" by one of her employers.

The wealthy are idle and clueless, and episodes often center around a sibling rivalry that the dumber of the two rarely seems aware of.

The show loves to push the bounds of decency, with characters being horribly racist and crude humor that often cheerfully crosses over the line, as in an episode that mocks rape (which one of the reviewers here is very angry about).

It gets away with this because it knows what it's doing. Underneath the silly, broad comedy, is a fairly sharp satire of class privilege. That combination of cheap jokes and smart comedy is, for me, irresistible.

"Another Period" takes place in Newport in the early 1900s, centering around the obscenely rich Bellacourt family, in particular the sisters Lillian and Beatrice who desperately want to become famous - it is basically a reality TV show set in a time in which being famous was much more difficult. Shot in mockumentary style, the series makes fun of both contemporary reality TV stars as well as the realities of early 20th century and the way these are usually portrayed in dramas.

While the show centers around Beatrice and Lillian, there is an ensemble cast consisting of both the self-centered Bellacourts and their subjugated servants, who have, in large parts, painfully internalized their subservient status. The characters are all funny in their own way, and the actors do a great job. Standing out for me are Paget Brewster as the morphine-addled mother Dodo and Michael Ian Black as the butler Mr. Peepers who are just so hilarious.

The characters are mostly terrible - which makes it so funny. It is just so much fun seeing those terrible people being stupid and tripping over their own feet. The humour is generally pitch-black and often reveals the terrible social conditions of women, the poor, and colored people of the time. The jokes deal with subject matters like rape, misogyny, racism, abuse. If you're a fan of black humour you will find this series hilarious, if not the show is probably not for you.

I've watched a few episodes so far and it's hilarious. It's the same sort of over-the-top, don't-take-it-too-serious sort of humour as The Office was. I mean, it's Victorian era setting with Snoop Dogg intro music.

The characters and dialogue are really funny, and just how they make such fun out of what those times must have been like - even though when looking at it, there's a stark reality that reminds you, some of what you're seeing WAS really how it was.

It's a show about gossiping girls and the comings and goings of their home. I'm a guy and usually HATE those stupid reality housewife and kardashians and all that. But I find the script so funny and the girls so dumb, that I love it. Actually, I like it more than my girlfriend so far, which is weird.

Oh well.