Tuesday, August 23, 2016

The Grinder (2015-16)

Grinder was a hilarious new sitcom that, unfortunately, was cancelled to soon! A new intellectual property of this calibre somewhat reminded me of the Arrested Development... The short run of this show - all 22 episodes of it - should be cherished!

Writing a review for a comedy is difficult - mostly because sense of humour is truly subjective; this makes judging a comedy significantly harder than a drama. The writing of the show, particularly the double entendres, was consistently good throughout the season. The two leads, Rob Lowe and Fred Savage, have great chemistry with each other. Rob Lowe's deadpan delivery cracked me up almost every time. He plays the titular character, Mitchard Grinder, who is a smart yet oblivious character-actor trying to transfer what he learned on TV to real life. His younger brother, Stewart Sanderson, is a small town lawyer who is the polar opposite of Rob Lowe's character. These two play off of each other brilliantly. The rest of the cast are interesting too, but of course do not shine as bright as Rob Lowe and Fred Savage.

The writers need to be commended as well. They played the long game - somewhat similar to the Arrested Development. There were simple plot points that payed off after 5-6 episodes, which made the payoff more gratifying.

Seeing this brilliant show cancelled is really upsetting. I sincerely hope that Netflix or Amazon would pick it up for more seasons. Even if they don't, this single season is self-contained. I would give it a 9/10.


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