Man Seeking Woman: What Did I Just Watch?!

Uhm... What
"Hell, when you look at it in the cold light of day, you're pretty much dead already" - Shane Walsh, The Walking Dead, S02E07

FX has a good track record for comedy. Always Sunny, Archer, The League, Wilfred, and Louie are all good shows, making me pretty excited for the wacky new comedy, Man Seeking Woman, starring Jay Baruchel. It looked like a mixture of fantastical storytelling and comedy, one that the This is the End star could shine in. I've watched it since the inagural episode, trying to learn what exactly the show is about. At first I thought it could just be an innovative new comedy with interesting new elements, but as I continued to watch the program aimlessly flounder around, it seems that it's just a shitshow covered up with the promise of new-ness.

Essentially, the plot of the show is that Jay Baruchel's character, Josh, has recently been dumped by his longtime girlfriend. Now that he's back on the dating scene, with the help of his sister and best friend, he's looking for love. However, in his surrealist world, all sorts of weirdo things can happen. For instance, he can be set up on a date with a troll... or his mother can drug and torture him... or he and his set-up date can cut the heads off of people shouting "couple up!" like it's no big deal. I understand that a lot of the surrealism is supposed to show the surrealism that is the dating world, but that is no real excuse for the show being completely aimless and for the most part, humorless.

I've spoken extensively about the dramedy category. While I don't know if Man Seeking Woman is in the same vein as Togetherness or Girls, it utilizes the same "real relationship" awkwardness that the others do. Jay Baruchel oozes awkwardness, but not even the type that can actually be funny, like Larry David in Curb. Instead, the show seems to have a loss for words... or jokes for that matter. Instead, it's just weird.

Now, there are elements of the show that are somewhat redeemable. For instance, as odd as the whole "dating a troll" thing was, it was an o-k analogy for how society views less-than-sexy dates. However, instead of just using this as a symbol, the show decides to go way above and beyond where the interestingness ends and the dreary-ness begins. Unlike Wilfred, where the dark surrealism seemed to fit into the show, Man Seeking Woman just kinda throws it in willy-nilly without rhyme or reason. There's no mystery as to whether Josh is crazy and imagining this world. There's no mystery as to whether the world is actually this way. Instead, there's a muddled gray in-between where the world doesn't make any sense but nobody seems to really care.

I guess what urks me about the show is that it doesn't give enough of a narrative to make me care about the drama and doesn't provide sufficient laughs to make me care about the comedy. While I get that it's trying to be quirky and unique, it's too all-over-the-place to actually warrant any cool, cult-following audiences. Even the episodic arcs don't seem to have a direction. In the fourth and most recent episode, "Dram," Josh first attends a dinner party wherein he must kill most of the guests to escape from them shouting at he and his blind date, then is interrogated by his mother about said date (with electrical shockers on his balls and nipples), then fakes his own death so that the date will stop pestering him. This was in 20 goddamn minutes.

Perhaps I'll give it another episode or two to get me re-engaged in the "plot," but with The Walking Dead and Better Call Saul airing tonight and House of Cards and Survivor 30 on the horizon, my TV schedule gets more busy, forcing out drabble like Man Seeking Woman.

Throw this one back in the junk pile with You're The Worst and Chozen. 

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