Taylor2813

It has been a number of years since I've read the comic so my rose tinted glasses might be at full force but it seems like both of these movies gutted the comics they were based on. They kept the skeleton: the plot points and some of iconic images from the books, but they almost completely gutted the character development not only by excising most of the monologue but by hiring voice actors that just could not do their roles justice. So not only do you only get a glimpse of the rabbit hole but that glimpse is just a picture of the hole in poor lighting with a finger in the frame. One other problem that needs mentioning is that the pacing is really problematic as you'd expect from trying to fit 4 hours worth of material into 1.5 hours. But hey, who wants character development and media satire when you can have overly long, highly implausible action scenes.

All the problems with this show pretty much stem from the rushed ending. Through episode 4 everything was entertaining enough; probably an 8.3 or so but then the booster rockets ignited and a lot of weight (i.e. subplots and believability) were jettisoned in order to fit what probably was intended to be another seasons worth of plot into 2 episodes. So, most of the side characters became plot devices instead of people and what could have been somewhat believable developments, given enough time, became lobotomizingly absurd. It is a shame too because I think the writers had a lot more story to tell and they could write some believable and interesting characters. I think they knew they were going to be canceled though and decided to give some kind of ending even though it basically ruined it for me.

I can't recommend this show but there were some performances that I think are worth mentioning. Mac steels the show for me as his character is very well performed, mostly well written, and given some evocative scenes that left quite an impression. Neil, is another mostly well written character, well performed and is my favorite anti-hero of the show. Also, Anna and Paul need to be mentioned for similar reasons.

Portlandia is a version of anti-comedy that doesn't realize anti-comedy is only good about 1 out of 30 skits, not all of them. Anti-comedy is comedy that tries to be funny by not being funny or trying to be ironic and usually is not good. Sometimes the jokes are too front loaded, sometimes they are just flogged to death in the attempt of making something that isn't funny funny by repetition. So, basically this just didn't work for me. It might work for you; the closest thing off the top of my head is another show I didn't like: Curb Your Enthusiasm. I only watched one episode of Curb and only 3 of this so maybe it's not a good comparison.