Big Time in Hollywood, FL

Big Time is still good for a solid slack humor a la Workaholics and the Wrong Mans. [20/27 Mar 2015, p.94]

Deceptively loose and shambling, Big Time is one of those shows--like the show it follows, Workaholics--that’s going to quickly attract a cult following. Get in on it now.

A wonderfully absurd, 10-episode serialized mini-epic about two self-absorbed brothers in suburban Florida whose filmmaking ambitions take a sudden turn into a dark, hilariously violent misadventure.

It’s not as sharp and lovable as “Broad City”; Abbi and Ilana, take a bow for an inspired second season of your New York picaresque. But it’s likable, over-the-top, culturally aware, and totally far-out, man. It’s the definition of a madcap adventure.

Based on the pilot (and Next Time On Lonny), Anfanger and Schimpf have surprise down--now they just have to string their surprises together.

This series boasts some reasonably high production values, certainly for Comedy Central, with lots of energy, and a sense that it knows where it's going and how to get there. But the tone is so relentlessly mean-spirited, the guys so unlikable, their predicament so pathetic that Big Time deflates before your very eyes.

Ingenious isn’t the same as funny or well directed, however, and Big Time is mostly a chore and a bore, except when a veteran like Mr. Gooding or Ms. Baker is on screen, or especially when the amazing, unfailingly funny Mr. Tobolowsky is making the most of a line.