Quickie review: Kevin Can F**k Himself

26 views

Skip to first unread message

Doug Fields

unread,

Jun 23, 2021, 6:54:59 PM6/23/21

to tvor...@googlegroups.com

Imagine the most derivative, vanilla sitcom you’ve ever seen. Just your basic “King of Queens”-style show about a husband and wife and the struggles of daily life. “Everybody Loves Raymond”, but with less funny jokes.

And then imagine the most derivative daily-life-grind drama you’ve ever seen, but with the least attractive aspects of some semi-popular shows currently in the network lineups. “Blue Bloods” without the folksy charm of the family dynamic and Sunday night dinner; “This Is Us” without the tear-jerking melodrama; “The Equalizer” without…well, no..just like “The Equalizer”.

Now, flip back and forth between these two dissimilar styles, but in the same show. Visually, it’s kind of interesting, as you watch the brightly lit soundstage (the primary set is suspiciously similar to the living room in “All in the Family”) with the requisite laugh track, typical wacky neighbors and cheesy over-acted situations, all done in a standard three-camera shot. And then you follow the main character as she walks through a door and BAM! The soundtrack abruptly cuts off, the lighting goes much darker and the view switches to a one-camera shot with dramatic angles and cuts.

That’s “Kevin Can F**k Himself”. Annie Murphy continues her quality work from “Schitt’s Creek” and is the only bright spot in the show, as she reaches an epiphany that she’s wasted the last 10 years of her life in a loveless marriage to her complete waste-of-space husband, Kevin. The first episode shows her finally reaching her breaking point and justifies what seems to foreshadow Kevin’s eventual permanent departure from the show. A former lover (now married and newly returned to the town that Murphy’s character never left) is introduced as the obvious future romantic entanglement, and the two-hour premier follows her as she sprirals down into self-pity and loathing at her husband in particular and her life in general.

The visual gimmick is interesting, but it just can’t overcome the almost complete lack of a fresh story. If it were either the sitcom or the drama alone, it would be a bad show. Mashing the two versions together does nothing to improve their separate deficiencies.

Doug Fields

Tampa, FL

Kevin M.

unread,

Aug 6, 2021, 1:12:20 AM8/6/21

to tvor...@googlegroups.com

I agreed with your take of the pilot, but as the season progressed, I was able to buy the premise. In the sitcom world, the men face no consequences, and the women exist in roles purely to serve the story. Kevin’s wife wants more, and the two worlds coexist and clash simultaneously. The pilot didn’t effectively demonstrate that premise, but it was used quite well in subsequent episodes.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tvornottv+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/BN6PR14MB1619CCE6BB484D4422CFC0C1C6089%40BN6PR14MB1619.namprd14.prod.outlook.com.