The Loop: Season One (review)

I’m not sure who the audience is for this schizophrenic would-be comedy: is it slackers who wish they were corporate VPs, or corporate VPs who wish they were slackers? Either way, the contrived shenanigans of Sam Sullivan (Bret Harrison) -- 20something corporate VP by day, slacker by night -- are as hollow as they are unfunny. Why not go out drinking tequila all night with your pals when you have to be in your window office first thing in the morning? Why not abandon a friend whose trust in you is already fragile in order to save your corporate ass? Sam swings wildly from being a jerk who puts his job above his friends to being an overgrown child you can’t believe has finished junior high school... and the one-note supporting characters are dull as, well, Sam himself: the overqualified executive assistant who does nothing but complain about how overqualified she is; the dopey brother with his get-rick-quick schemes; the object of Sam’s unrequited love who’s hot and... hot. These seven episodes -- they aired on Fox last year; new episodes are arriving soon -- sketch out a very unattractive portrait of the trailing end of Generation X as shallow, unpleasant nitwits, no matter what advanced degrees they have, who are constitutionally incapable of creating their own happiness. [buy at Amazon]

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