BY MIKEY MIGO
HIIIIIIPPPPSTERS! This show makes me feel like Ogre in the early scene in Revenge of the Nerds when he sees Louis and Gilbert showing up on campus. Crazy lazy eye and all, Ogre sees these two young men and screams “Neeeeerds”. For me, I get this way when it comes to “hipsters”. Everyone has their own nerdy tendencies, but there is a fine line between quirky nerd and all out hipster. Basically, if you know more than one song by The Shins then you’re a hipster. Sorry, that’s about as fair as I can decide. I’m not just saying this because I only know one song by The Shins, it’s because they pretty much are the measuring stick of “hip”. That’s why the IFC original “Portlandia” is hilarious. It’s a sketch comedy show set in Portland, seemingly the hipster capital of the universe. Fred Armisen, of SNL fame, and Carrie Brownstein, of Sleater-Kinney “fame”, are homies. They hang out and make silly videos. This evolved into them having their own sketch comedy show. They’ll play random characters throughout the city of Portland. It’s pretty funny. I watched the six episode season this past week and I think I laughed out loud at least once every episode. It’s all weird and random stuff. Really dry and verbal humor wrapped in an independent film gritty presentation. The show wasn’t great, but it was solid. I was amused throughout, but barely. I enjoyed what I saw, but this is one of those things that would be better with some more episodes behind it. By that, I mean I want to watch Fred and Carrie evolve the show over a few more seasons. There is some stuff that worked and some stuff that didn’t. The good outweighed the bland FOR SURE. I do recommend this. It’s six half hour episodes. What do you have to lose? If you have time to be reading this sentence then it’s safe to say you can squeeze three hours of your life in the near future. It kind of reminds me of “Flight of the Conchords”. It’s off kilter, and I guess you’d call it “alternative comedy”. I’m a big fan of little shows like this. I dig how TV shows from across the pond normally consist of like six episodes a season or a “series as they call it. It keeps things simple, keeps things fresh, and is more thought out it seems. Yeah, HBO and the cable channels get away with a dozen episodes for most series, but there is something classy about a six episode season. It worked for the original Office, it works for Peep Show, it works for the IT Crowd, it works for Eastbound and Down(well, 7 in season 2) works for other shows as well. I always wanted to see more US shows do the same thing. You don’t HAVE to have 24 episodes a season. You can do a short season, throw it out there, let people enjoy it and still work on other stuff. Carrie Brownstein has a music career that she can focus on as her “day job” while Fred Armisen is still on SNL and still pops up in randomness from time to time. You have to appreciate the show almost automatically because that right there shows you that they’re doing this out of enjoyment rather than employment. They’re not going to make a killing on the show, but it’s hilarious as hell and I think with some time and word of mouth this should be easily find a cult following. The first season was fun, but I’m going to feel cheated if they don’t do more. Like at least two seasons more. MORE!
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