Bridge and Tunnel (2021)

“Bridge and Tunnel” may be asking familiar questions, but it still left me very curious to see how they’re resolved.

Bridge And Tunnel is potentially a good show, with some funny situations and a good amount of drama in the mix. Burns’ dialogue is generally spot on and well-delivered by the cast. But by the end of the first episode, there wasn’t one character we could latch onto and root for or against.

Pags feels more like a person instead of a character outline. Unfortunately, these moments are too far and few between for Pags and his buddies, who all suffer from limited depictions. Mikey mostly struts, Tammy pines, and Stacey only pivots between sullen and annoyed. Jimmy and Jill have the exact same conversation about their relationship, whether it’s on the phone or in person. And through it all, there’s very little sense of why any of these friendships began in the first place.

A weightless and occasionally airless trip down memory lane.

Bridge and Tunnel is comfortably within his aesthetic wheelhouse, a nostalgia-bathed coming-of-age dramedy set in Long Island circa 1980. Somewhere in the six half-hour episodes here there's an 85-minute feature waiting to get chiseled out, excavating the story's low-key pleasures from a whole lot of padding.

“Bridge and Tunnel” is a nostalgic period piece that offers insignificant storylines to mark its meandering journey down memory lane.