Backpackers

The transition from web series to half-hour episodes makes for some awkward pacing, as a single episode blasts through three or four different comic setups and lacks the typical thematic structure of episodic television. Nonetheless, Backpackers generates effective momentum through recurring characters and increasingly heightened situations.

This may be how it is among the backpacking young nowadays; surely, we are meant to see them as passionate, in their individual ways. Yet the whole business feels a little shallow.

Backpakers benefits from filming on location in Europe but that can’t make up for the lowest common denominator escapades, which play like an unfunny, made-for-TV “Road Trip.”

Not worth sitting through for the scenery when you can switch to Travel Channel.

With no character development and too many plot jumps, Backpackers could use a rest stop.