Robert Lloyd

It’s the sort of absurdist comedy that used to turn up in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, something like the works of Robert Downey Sr. or William Klein, or maybe an ambitious film student’s senior thesis, given a big budget and access to talent; in its very lack, or perhaps avoidance, of subtlety it feels very old-fashioned. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it bad, or for that matter good, but it seems to me the perfect realization of the creator’s idea, and there is something in that.

“Man on Fire,” created by Kyle Killen, is straightforward action entertainment, a traditional payback drama with generally clear-cut good guys and bad guys, once you sort them out.

“Widow’s Bay” reaches deep into that bag of tropes, but it’s all part of the game; familiarity breeds anticipation, which breeds fear. .... Many of its characters are exaggerated in a way that can pass for comical, until the horror just elbows them out of the way in its very effective, storm-tossed final acts.

Mounted by showrunner Eric Robles, it’s a streamlined, supercharged telling, stripped of the soap operatics that occupied more of the original series than you might remember. It’s a classic kids-versus-monster adventure from which adults are largely absent, which in its own way makes this a superior “Stranger Things.”

It can be visually distressing and there are perhaps too many anus-related jokes (I would have settled for one). But the dialogue is funny — “Should we take Airborne? It was designed by teachers” is among my favorite lines this year — the social satire sharp and the NYC references fun, if you know them (a scene in the Café Carlyle, nods to Brooklyn’s Union Pool, a character obviously modeled on Fran Lebowitz). And the whole business proves, happily, to have a lot of heart — broken sometimes, but that’s life, even in Toontown.

It’s enlightening, it’s heartfelt. Episodes run about 15 minutes, and while YouTube is full of videos of comparable length where you can learn all about corn and apples and tomatoes, visit with farmers, hear jokes or find children being adorable, you’ll never find it all in such a delightful single package.

The actors keep it real enough, as their characters, forced to grow a little, are dragged into the same space for the climax, as the series revs up into a kind of conspiracy thriller, before a coda set eight years later finds them variously arranged. As in the less conclusive first season, it feels engineered to deliver the characters to happy, or relatively happy, endings, and to send viewers out not regretting their investment of time.

Though it is all improbable, the parts do mesh neatly; they make television sense. Finally, the series rests on the shoulders of the three principal players, who are just a pleasure to watch.

“Margo’s Got Money Problems” can be terribly sentimental, almost corny — the climax is pure Hollywood — but undeniably effective.

The cast is very good and the dialogue good enough, but because few of these characters are developed beyond a handful of identifying characteristics, it’s a generally cold, dispassionate watch.