What is this show intended as? One gets the sense the writers, producer and director were all seeking to make different shows. Is it a comedy? It certainly appears to be billed that way, particularly with Irishman O'Dowd in the central role as a content-with-his-lot high school teacher in a small American town living with his gorgeous African American wife and their teenage daughter. But the arrival of a spooky arcade game in the general store throws the town awry. The game supposedly tells everyone what their destiny is (after they have provided their social security number and fingerprints).
It's an interesting concept but the delivery is a mess. If it's intended as a comedy it's not funny at all. But neither are the stakes sufficiently great for it meet the definition of drama. It might have been a nice and prickly satire of acquisitive, neo-liberal, 'you-can-be-anything-you-want-to-be' American individualism, but it doesn't really pick up on that either. Everything is just too cute and cliched to make you care about anyone. One is left with the impression that everyone involved was try8ing very hard, but no-one had any idea what program they were making beyond the central conceit about the truth-telling machine.
Over-hyped, try-hard American pap.
It's an interesting concept but the delivery is a mess. If it's intended as a comedy it's not funny at all. But neither are the stakes sufficiently great for it meet the definition of drama. It might have been a nice and prickly satire of acquisitive, neo-liberal, 'you-can-be-anything-you-want-to-be' American individualism, but it doesn't really pick up on that either. Everything is just too cute and cliched to make you care about anyone. One is left with the impression that everyone involved was try8ing very hard, but no-one had any idea what program they were making beyond the central conceit about the truth-telling machine.
Over-hyped, try-hard American pap.