Broad City

Gen Y Seinfeld -with the good and bad that implies.

Around the third season, this show's comedy stopped gut-punching and started tickling instead, which is to say the funny stuff seemed to wane. Still, I found myself dedicated to the stories of these two friends. Glazer and Jacobson are both so utterly goddamn good, and it can be easy to underappreciate their acting chops on first viewing, but really: they are brilliant. And more than a handful of episodes tossed me flat on the floor in laughing fits.

Broad City is crazy in the best kind of way. From Abbi Jacobson to Ilana Glazer to Hannibal Burress to Paul Downs, the comedy drips from every scene. Finding the hilarious aspects of every day life are what so many different shows try to do, but many fail at. Even when they do, the shows tend to get stale after a while. Broad City has not.

Those that superficially criticize the "hipster" aspects of this great, thoroughly understated (as absurd as that sounds), intelligent, show probably just saw the pegging episode and can't come to terms with the fact that they might want something up their butt.

Gen Y Seinfeld is right.

Brilliant in its first-two seasons (my score: high 80s), this show really runs itself ragged and wheezes into its final season with all the humor of a buzzfeed listicle. It doggedly tries to keep up with youth culture and progressive politics but somehow forgets its comedic elements. Season 4 features such cliched comedic setups as Abbi is both a guest and the caterer at a fancy museum party! What shenanigans! Such a sad contrast to the authentic laugh-out-loud frankness of the first seasons.

You go, girls!

passes the time

I'd seen one episode in the past but I only finally now got around to watching it properly. On a moment-to-moment basis, it's hit and miss, but the charm of the lead characters remains consistent throughout. In many ways, it a very real show about my generation and twenty-something poverty, but it's also surreal, weird and hilarious. And bravo Criticker, it was bound to happen sooner or later: http://i.imgur.com/7U3SH7F.png

Seasons 1-2