B.J. Novak’s disappointing anthology The Premise tackles hot topics, tepidly
The Office alum B.J. Novak has big ideas for this series, but most episodes are undone by phoniness and a lack of follow-through.
TV Reviews B.J. Novak
Over the past several years, cable channels and streaming services have been teeming with anthology series, many of them following a simple formula: Take some hot-button sociopolitical issue, abstract it slightly into a horror or science-fiction short story, and then slyly prod the audience, reminding them about our tumultuous real world while rarely making any clear, direct statement about How Things Are Today. So give writer-producer (and occasional director) B.J. Novak’s new FX on Hulu project The Premise credit for this: It doesn’t couch its observations about modern life in metaphors and fantasies. Each of The Premise’s five episodes are contemporary dramedies, confronting timely topics like corrupt policing, gun rights, bullying, celebrity worship, wokeness, and internet trolling.
But it’s also wildly inconsistent, with the episode quality ranging from “better than the plot would suggest” to “soul-crushingly shoddy.” Of those first five episodes, the two that are the most overtly comedic, “Social Justice Sex Tape” and “The Ballad Of Jesse Wheeler,” are near-total disasters: overly blunt and painfully unfunny. The two that function more like genre exercises, “Moment Of Silence” and the unfortunately named “Butt Plug,” are surprisingly effective, edge-of-the-seat tales of suspense. And then the other episode, “The Commenter,” falls somewhere in between, with a sketchy story that gets more tense as it goes along… but which never overcomes the paltriness of its original idea.
What all these half-hour playlets have in common are some phenomenal casts, capable at times of elevating the material. In “The Commenter,” for example, Lola Kirke is terrific as an influencer and wellness guru named Allegra, who sees her seemingly perfect life start to fray when an online troll prompts her to second-guess her life choices. A lot of the action in “The Commenter” is internal, playing out in voiceover as Allegra reads the troll’s words; and Kirke plays the character’s creeping doubt and paranoia subtly, showing how she becomes increasingly distracted and distant.
Even “The Ballad Of Jesse Wheeler” is almost rescued by its leads. Kaitlyn Dever plays Abbi, a high school slacker who overnight becomes one of her class’ top students after a visiting pop star pledges to have sex with that year’s valedictorian. Lucas Hedges has a naïve charm as that teen idol, Jesse, a well-meaning dim bulb who ends up having long philosophical conversations with the rebellious Abbi about whether school actually has a purpose.
But great performances can’t overcome weak scripts, strung together with ideas that sometimes feel like first drafts. In “The Commenter”—co-written by Novak and Jia Tolentino—it’s hard to get past a moment early on when Allegra finds out she’s won the award for “Miss Generational Inspiration.” Allegra later makes fun of the award, but in the reality of the episode, this stupidly named and barely explained prize (not too far removed from The Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievement In The Field of Excellence) is supposed to be a real and apparently prestigious thing, which impresses Allegra’s girlfriend Beth (Soko) and their cool friends.
Similarly, in “The Ballad Of Jesse Wheeler,” it makes no sense that a senior with terrible grades—who has cut class for three straight years—could even attempt to become valedictorian, an honor which in nearly every actual high school takes into account a student’s complete four-year transcript. Novak is the sole credited writer and director of this episode, and if he’s trying to say something pertinent about the American public educational system, it’d help if he didn’t botch the basics of how grades work. Also, it’s a lazy bit of stereotyping that Susie (Grace Song), Abbi’s top valedictorian competition—and the lone student with a GPA above 3.0 prior to Jesse’s visit—is the only named Asian American character in the episode.
Much of The Premise is meant to be humorous, in the vein of a whimsically absurd New Yorker piece, so some exaggeration for comic effect is to be expected. But Novak’s jokes (if they are jokes… it’s unclear what we’re supposed to think about the whole “Miss Generational Inspiration” thing) often feel more like a means to a narrative end than hilarious goofs or witty insights. They’re a few degrees sillier than they need to be, perhaps because Novak only has 30 minutes to get to the point of his story.
Too often with The Premise, these miscues compound, as in the excruciating “Social Justice Sex Tape”—the show’s first episode, for some reason. The story (co-written by Novak and Josie Duffy Rice) is the most New Yorker-like in concept, with Ben Platt playing Ethan, a compulsive “virtue signaler” who uncovers the video evidence that could free an imprisoned Black man. Only, Ethan finds it in the background of an erotic selfie in which his crudely sexist language and borderline racist behavior falls well below the standard of an “ally.” In the ensuing trial, both the prosecution and the defense scrutinize Ethan’s public and private personas, in ways far removed from anything that would happen in an actual courtroom. (There’s Novak taking comedic liberties again.) These surface-level attacks on both “social justice warriors” and their nitpicking critics ultimately prove to be more smug, sour, and depressing than amusing or enlightening.
Novak is probably still best-known for having once been a writer, producer, and actor on The Office, which makes The Premise’s failures as comedy all the more frustrating. Oddly, the series is much, much better when it’s playing straight. In “Moment Of Silence,” Jon Bernthal plays a scarily intense new hire at an NRA-like lobbying group, with concerned coworkers who’ve become increasingly certain that he’s planning to go on a shooting spree. And in “Butt Plug,” one of the world’s richest men (Daniel Dae Kim) hires a down-on-his-luck former classmate (Eric Lange) who once bullied him mercilessly, and then asks his new employee to craft the ultimate pitch for the title object. What makes both “Moment Of Silence” and “Butt Plug” work so well is that none of the characters—not even the gun nuts—are depicted one-dimensionally. All the way to the nerve-racking closing minutes, it’s hard to tell what anyone’s intentions really are.
More importantly, neither episode (both credited solely to Novak) is predictable or heavy-handed. Instead they’re beguiling and unsteadying; and they have much more to say than the likes of “Social Justice Sex Tape” about how there’s more to most people than just the slogans and hashtags in their Twitter feeds. These two episodes actually fulfill the premise of The Premise, which FX has touted as “An Anthology Of Now,” telling stories that cut to the heart of what’s really troubling us these days: economic insecurity, power imbalances, fear of mass tragedies, and the like. The rest of the series so far feels like it’s reacting more to reality as refracted through social media, where everything is distorted, grotesquely outsized, and ultimately irrelevant.
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I figured this would be the kind of series that beats you over the head with the message. I started watching Black Mirror and hot damn was that unsubtle as hell, couldn’t make it past the first few eps, this seems the same way.
the Twilight Zone was also terrible at this. I like the concept of heightening some of our day to day horrors, but the point of using this medium is so you have a nuanced approach that leaves room for discussion, not just these simplistic metaphors that leave zero room for contemplation.
Yeah at least the Twilight Zone came in at under 30 minutes but you’re not wrong.
Which is why the new, hour-long “Twilight Zone” is a fucking slog.
As soon as I saw that they were going to be hour long episodes I decided I wasn’t going to watch them. By all accounts it was the correct choice.
I’ve only seen about 5-6 of them. And every single one could have been a tight 30 minutes. None of the premises earned the runtime and a few of them felt seriously padded.
not a show I’m at all interested in revisiting.
And the thing about hour long Twilight Zone is, the season of the original series that was an hour long is pretty much agreed upon by everyone to be the worst.
Unfortunately awards shows (and thus the network executives who crave them) think 30 minutes = comedy, 60 minutes = drama and The Twilight Zone is a drama.
Plus I felt that , with some exceptions, that BM had the exact same message over and over again. “DEPENDENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA/TECHNOLOGY BAAAAAD”, and some of the episodes were just painfully stupid (Black Museum in particular).
I was going to say that the image of Jon Bernthal in a sharp suit with gelled hair is some real uncanny valley stuff, but “intense lobbyist for the NRA who is about to go on a shooting spree” brings it right back around again.
Who on EARTH thought this would succeed? The bus ads for this, with BJ Novak’s smirking face and the message “The Anthology of NOW” are fucking embarrassing. Not to add into it BJ Novak is a known creep who will slip into any attractive woman’s DMs and try to exploit their love of the office– he is bound to get #metoo’ed someday, I am shocked it hasn’t happened yet. There’s a million great how ideas out there and TV is better than ever. Why someone chose to make this baffles me.
didn’t know he was a creep, yeesh. Just unfollowed him, it’s all we got sometimes 🙁
You unfollowed someone you’re a fan of, because a random AV Club commenter told you that he tries to get laid on Twitter?Holy fuck!!
BBecause someone on the av club comment board said he’s a creep you unfollow and second that? Did you have to think about it or just instantly believe anything anyone says about anyone? Yeesh indeed
nah I googled around, saw similar sentiments. don’t like dealing with similar harassment, deleted said person that reminds me of that harassment.
Eh, it sounds dumb, but I found out about Louis CK, Weinstein, and Spacey in Gawker comments years before their stories officially broke. When the stories are fake it’s usually surprisingly obvious (like the mentally unwell woman who would comment about Marc Jacobs constantly).
I wonder if he plays up being in a Tarantino movie, despite barely doimg or saying anything memorable in Inglorious Basterds.
I actually forgot he was in it until you reminded me. And at the time, it was surprising to see him in that role; obviously it did not stick with me.
I agree, it’s a bit strange how they missed with “Jesse Wheeler”. Especially since the series is billed as a satire, the show can’t resonate if it has no basis in reality. Maybe if they made it about, say, standardized testing, it would work. Small detail, but more technically accurate and therefore provocative.
Shame, I was really looking forward to this series. Here’s to B.J. Novak recognizing the weaknesses of the show and emphasizing the structure of the two standout episodes.
I guess the reviewer thought it was poorly executed, but the premise of Social Justice Sex Tape sounds pretty funny to me.
one of those shows that will be completely memory-holed before it’s even done airing.
Take some hot-button sociopolitical issue, abstract it slightly into a horror or science-fiction short story, and then slyly prod the audience, reminding them about our tumultuous real world while rarely making any clear, direct statement about How Things Are Today.I kind of wonder if this may be because most shows which “make a clear, direct statement about How Things Are Today” tend to quickly become didactic, hectoring and prone to shouting at the already-converted (especially when the story is in the form of an anthology which only has 30-60 minutes to set up and pay off everything). Dressing the Almighty Message up in a thin veil of sci-fi / fantasy / horror metaphor at least gives the audience something entertaining and different to latch on to that provides some distance. Like, The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror aren’t exactly subtle about telling you what Rod Serling or Charlie Brooker think about things, but at least they’ve also got a gremlin on a plane or a thing that records your memories to cushion it a bit. This just sounds kind of insufferably heavy-handed, like being cornered by a bore at a party who wants to make sure you know all his opinions on everything.
Star Trek has never been particularly subtle about such things. “You mean that episode with the aliens who had half white/half black faces was a comment upon racism in our current society? Deep, man!”
This is why I loved the anthology send-ups from Futurama from the “What If” machine. Anthologies, but funny!
YOU WATCHED IT! YOU CAN’T UN-WATCH IT!
To those ends, maybe Novak could add to the appeal with a Fing-longer? I haven’t watched the show, so I can’t say.
Tagline to “The Premise”: What if that thing I said?
Why should we believe you? You’re Hitler.
Was that ‘’The Negron Complex”, a screenplay by Paul Kinsey?
In 1960s television, that was deep.
i think it’s just a lack of an authentic voice. like, a series like this could be interesting if you really consulted and worked with people who have actually been in weird, awful situations similar to this and tried to actually bring humanity to it…but because it has to be a morality tale it can only really go so far in that direction.the other side is, frankly, bj novak is just a rich comedy writer and has been for over a decade, he can’t possibly bring anything to this that isn’t surface level. and because it’s his baby so overall that’s all it’ll be.and finally, because this is streaming it was completely created in a vacuum, and can’t course-correct or apply feedback or anything.
But by this same logic, Jia Tolentino would be just about ideal to write about a person’s life being derailed by reading the comments (she’s been a woman in the public eye for a decade, has a ton of twitter and insta followers, etc), but apparently her episode is weak too.
I think it’s a good point that the people watching this are already likely to agree with the creatives’ POVs; its the same issue that plagues The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight, etc. They are preaching to the choir. A lot of successful horror/sci-fi crosses political lines and asks you to think about what is presented. Now, sometimes that message is lost, e.g. I am sure that an unsurprising but disturbing amount of Trumpers identify with the Rebels in Star Wars, fighting the big bad government of the empire with faith and righteousness. And obviously there are some works that tell you pretty early on what side they are on, e.g. V for Vendetta, which I also doubt is popular with the right wing crowd. But I naively want to believe that a lot of sci-fi was successful in getting some people, generally younger, to think about the themes of what they are consuming, e.g. does this camper *really* deserve to be killed by Jason for having sex before marriage? Hopefully it sticks. This show… does not seem to be that.
Jia Tolentino absolutely thinks she should win “Miss Generational Inspiration”.
I’d never heard of this person before, but after quickly reading up on her, she 100% sounds like a made-up character. She ticks literally every millennial box.
Jia was actually a fairly prolific writer and editor at Jez before she went to work at the New Yorker.
Yeah, she used to be really snotty any time the commenters disagreed with her. That doesn’t disqualify her from being a good writer – people can be more than the sum of their social media arguments, why, someone should make a heavy-handed anthology series about that – but it does make her current level of prestige feel a bit weird for me.
What happened with Lola Kirke I wonder. She seems very likable in Mozart in the Jungle, but haven’t seen her in anything buzzy since. Nepotism runs rampage in Hollywood, you’d think her sister could have helped her land something decent.
I’m not entirely unconvinced this series was not conceived by Ryan, BJ Novak’s character from The Office.
IIRC some former Office cast and crew have gone on the record saying that Novak is very similar to Ryan in real life.
I’ve seen him act in other things – notably “The Founder” and “Saving Mr. Banks”, and he just comes across as Ryan trying to play a more earnest version of himself. His talents lay behind the camera.
“His talents lay behind the camera.”Wouldn’t this review suggest that they don’t?
“…undone by phoniness and a lack of follow-through.”Yep, sounds like Ryan, alright.
I’d rather watch the exploits of superspy Michael Scarn (and his idiot sidekick Dwigt).
the rarely-seen triple negative
This sounds like a parody of what a streaming service thinks “smart people” want to watch.
You included Electric Dreams in that list of similar shows, but I don’t recall it being about hot-button issues. It’s adapting a bunch of old PKD stories, even if the adaptations aren’t strictly faithful.For an anthology show which doesn’t wrap everything in horror/scifi or any other specific genre, there’s Room 104. I’ve admittedly only seen the first two seasons.
Blah Mirror?
Or as Mad Magazine would have said, Blecch Mirror.
Wow, I miss MAD Magazine.
“The Twilight Snore”
Just the marketing for this; “The Premise by B.J. Novak”…wtf? Who else gets their name in the title? That was an instant turn off for me.Can you imagine “Better Call Saul by Vince Gilligan”. Like he would say ok to that?
It reminds me of Precious Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
BJ Novak needs to lose 15 pounds.
Is that how much the combined weight of these scripts were?
B.J. Novak? Tepid?Sounds about right.
A radio show used to read stories from one of Novak’s books (I’m not sure which one, because apparently he has a few), and I was always floored by how bad they were. They were trying for the whole Garrison Keillor folksy fable vibe, but were not well constructed at all. So this review doesn’t surprise me.
This is trying to be Black Mirror meets Man Seeking Woman but it doesn’t have the best parts of either (though full disclosure I’m not a huge Black Mirror fan). These definitely felt like first drafts that weren’t really thought through. Agreed that the Bernthal gun lobby episode is the best, even though I did guess the ending. But how is it possible the others are so bad and, when intended as comedy, so unfunny? BJ Novak apparently was always a good one-liner guy, and yet the shows have such a dearth of good lines.
I finished watching “Butt Plug” (Episode 5 of Season 1), and I had to say something about this part:“Troy is the youngest member of our board: a former Fields Medal winner. That’s a prize give out to—”“The most gifted statistical analyst of his generation.”No it’s not. It’s given to mathematicians generally.
Oh, and by the way, zinc sells at $1.25 per pound. Assuming that the object is completely zinc, and weighs 5 pounds—both of which are wild overestimates, obviously—the current metal value of the butt plug would be $6.25. Assume that the zinc market could be cornered to the extent that the price increases twenty-fold, that’s $125.00. One-eighth of the purchase price that Eli Spector proposes. Not exactly a store of value.Yeah, I get it. The story doesn’t hinge on either of those facts. But that’s what drives me crazy: it’s unnecessarily sloppy. There wasn’t anyone who could take a literal minute to Google those facts and rewrite those scenes?