I appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me. I think I'm just a little fed up about the whole concept since a lot of series are just like this. Making fun of stupid people is an honest thing I guess, but mostly it just seems kind of forced.
Me having just seen 5 minutes of it, could be wrong, but the impression I got was that the satire wasn't social criticism or directed towards the powers at be, as I think satire should be, but towards the little guy. Which I just don't think is that funny.
You mention the movie Falling Down, but at no time during this, did I feel anything but sympathy for the main character. In contrast to The Chair Company, which made me develop a real antipathy for the main character in just the first 5 minutes.
Five minutes is completely insubstantial to grok this show. It is way more surreal than you think. And the characters aren’t necessarily meant for sympathy, even if aspects of them can be relatable. Plenty of works have an unlikable protagonist yet is still compelling.
I want to push back - "a lot of series are just like this" is to me like saying "a lot of series are science fiction."
It's certainly okay to be frustrated by the behavior in the show. But if you let that frustration drive your experience, you miss the broader message. GP brilliantly summarized.
I have never really thought about having people making stupid choices, as a genre in itself. I have mostly just viewed it as an annoying artefact of lazy writing.
But if that is the case, I guess I was correct in my first assumption; that this show is just another one of those.
Me having just seen 5 minutes of it, could be wrong, but the impression I got was that the satire wasn't social criticism or directed towards the powers at be, as I think satire should be, but towards the little guy. Which I just don't think is that funny.
You mention the movie Falling Down, but at no time during this, did I feel anything but sympathy for the main character. In contrast to The Chair Company, which made me develop a real antipathy for the main character in just the first 5 minutes.