tek's rating: ½

Corporate, on Comedy Central
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Season 1
This is set at a corporation called Hampton DeVille, which basically crushes the souls of its employees. The series focuses mainly on two junior executives-in-training named Matt Engelbertson and Jake Levinson, who share an office. They also have a friend in HR named Grace. And there are a pair of executives named John Strickland and Kate Glass, whose job seems to be to make everyone's lives worse. (Not that they see it that way; they're not bad people, or anything. Their souls are about as crushed as everyone else's.) The CEO is Christian DeVille (Lance Reddick). And there's an IT guy named Baron. The show kind of reminds me of Better Off Ted, but it's much darker and drearier. (Some might say it's reminiscent of the movie "Office Space," but I haven't seen that.) There's also a recurring character named Paige (Anna Akana). I'm not sure what her job is, and her role is pretty minor (but the fact that Akana is in the show is probably the main reason I wanted to check it out, before it started). And... I don't know what else to say, except that I find the show mildly amusing.

After the 10 episode first season, I decided to put my review under "weird shows," but that's largely because I wanted the color scheme to be gray. Because the mood of the show is so gray... so dismal. It is kind of weird, actually, so that may be a better fit than, say, "comedy" or "quirky," but it's not so weird that I didn't have any reservations about choosing this category. But, whatever.

Season 2
The show is maybe slightly less bleak this season, but that could just be because I'm used to it. I also find the show a lot funnier this season. Anyway, Christian buys a cable news network called BNN. There's an anchor named Karen James, who is just as ruthlessly career-oriented as Christian, and the two of them become increasingly close throughout the season. Meanwhile, the series focuses mainly on familiar characters. And there are some very good stories fully of very good cultural commentary. I think my favorite was "Natural Beauty," but I suppose all the episodes were good. Some were kind of brilliant. And I don't know what else to say.

Season 3
I have nothing in particular to say about this season, except that there were only 6 episodes, and I missed one of them, which really annoyed me. Also it's the final season.


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