Sonic Cinema

Sounds, Visions and Insights by Brian Skutle

Overcrowded (TV)

Grade : B+ Year : 2009 Director : Dan Kowalski Running Time : 40min Genre : ,
Movie review score
B+

For what is intended as a sitcom pilot, one would fear that the 40-minute “Overcrowded” would seem too long and too broad to work, but I could almost see it working. It’s got the beats and rhythms of a sitcom nailed down, with the establishing shots and quick musical stings coming out of commercials to the crazy premise to the characters you’d expect to follow for a season. However, I don’t know if a 22-minutes-a-week sitcom would fit for this premise so much as a web series, each following a different character through their adventures and pratfalls. The only thing that really connects the main characters is that they live in the same apartment. They don’t really have stories together in this work but more adjacent to one another. It’s pretty funny, but also really, really dumb. That’s not always a bad thing, though.

We begin with the obligatory theme song that establishes the premises, and right away, the mood is set for some of the silliest, stupidest humor we’re likely to see in any 40 minute stretch of film. (Again, that’s not really a bad thing.) Steven and Claire Hansen (Ian Campbell Dunn and Jennifer Zigler) are just moving in to an old-school brick-and-mortar apartment complex, but they, in fact, are not the focal points of our story. That would be the apartment of four guys who are their neighbors, and these guys are dumb. Greg (Greg Vorob) appears to be a slick self-promoter, and he’s definitely the latter, but he’s far from slick; he takes the group’s initial meeting with Steven and Claire to think that Steven has “recommended” him for a job at the insurance company he works for, but nothing could be further from the truth. That doesn’t prevent him from selling himself to Steven’s boss (Timothy J. Cox), and landing a job anyway. Meanwhile, Claire has her hands full with Dan (Dan Conrad), who wants to be a writer, and writes himself an absurd delusion about Claire throwing herself at him, which gets to the point of psychotic, and makes Steven’s life an even bigger living nightmare than Greg accomplishes. Paul (Paul White) doesn’t have quite the impact on Steven and Claire as Dan and Greg do, but it’s no wonder since he’s got some big issues of his own regarding the Japanese Yakuza. Say what? Trust me, it’s not nearly as absurd a relationship with Japanese culture as Marc (Marc Seidenstein) has, though, when what starts out as a desire to make money selling bonsai trees becomes a weird trip to further enlightenment that leads to orgies. Lots of orgies.

Creators Dan Conrad and Greg Vorob, along with director Dan Kowalski, have developed a surreal premise following some of the most obnoxious, absurd individuals you’re likely to meet. Even from a sitcom standpoint, these are some truly broad characters. It’s hard to imagine being able to follow along with them for 22 episodes let alone 40 minutes when “Overcrowded” first begins, but when the wheels get greased on their respective storylines, it’s hard not to get sucked into the craziness with them, and as broad as the comedy is played, it’s very funny, a lot of the time. I saw in one other review for “Overcrowded” that it seemed less like an actual pilot but more a spoof on the conventions of sitcoms. I can see it going both ways, although I think the running time, which is twice the usual sitcom episode, has me leaning more towards the latter. Either way, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot in “Overcrowded” that has you laughing, as well as a lot that has you cringing with how stupid things get in this work. I can’t imagine the people responsible being terribly surprised with either response.

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