I get what they were going for. I really do, with the whole transvestite/transgender dad... but no.
All the critics are praising this, but I think it's mostly because the trans wagon is really in right now, and you're not cool anymore if you don't go trans because gay characters in shows have lost that good taboo feel.
That's what this feels like. Plot less and purposeless melodrama that no one really cares about. The characters, aside from their sexual proclivities have no hook to them. Nothing. Nothing to make them interesting. One daughter is falling back into lesbianism, the son is into grannies and masking it with a public love for teens, and there's another one who's into a very military buffed hot black dude. None of this is interesting, yet, I feel like when they were plotting out these characters that this was there starting idea and they'd just build from that.
"Hey, let's have a family of deviants, and then display all their emotions for about 10 episodes, for about 6 - 10 seasons." I feel like that was the pitch for this.
To me, a show must have a decent plot with at least one decent character to make a show worth watching. Or it must have some really exceptional scenery going on,(like Avatar). Transparent fails spectacularly at having characters you care about, and even worse it has no plot to fall back on. "Dad must come out as a transvestite/transsexual" to his family." That's the conflict here, and immediately you ask yourself "Are any of them in any position to judge him?" As I said, one is into grannies and the other is going back to lesbianism despite having a family and like 10 toddlers. The other one is basically a freeloader loser who is asking said dad for money after running through her "price is right" winnings. (Ironically, she's the only one remotely appealing, because the other daughter is sorta narcissistic and the brother makes comments about his sisters having barbecue sauce in their vaginas - because real family members say things like this over dinner)
No Plot + No Characters = me not caring
Also, my other point of disgruntlement, is the fact that IMDb wrote it up as a comedy. And, I don't think that anyone in this world would associate Tambor right now with anything not inherently funny. So I get that somebody along the way thought that this was a comedy.
BUT, there's nothing funny at all about this series except seeing Tambor in drag, which falls kinda in the cringe-comedy bucket, because Tambor is no Cillian Murphy/Jared Leto/Lee Pace.
That joke worked in Arrested Development, but that had the context to make it funny. That was a comedy.
Transparent is NOT a comedy. Maybe a dramedy, a bad one, but not a comedy. And it reeks of writers thinking "Oohh, this is so clever and fresh and raw and dark and deep", when it's actually just not any of these things.
I'd probably have given it a 5/10 or a 6/10 if it wasn't for stupid reviews building up my expectations. This is not fun. Not quirky. Not smart. Not clever. Not raw. Not dark. Not edgy. Not "real". Neither dramatic nor comedic. Just 29 minutes of "blah".
All the critics are praising this, but I think it's mostly because the trans wagon is really in right now, and you're not cool anymore if you don't go trans because gay characters in shows have lost that good taboo feel.
That's what this feels like. Plot less and purposeless melodrama that no one really cares about. The characters, aside from their sexual proclivities have no hook to them. Nothing. Nothing to make them interesting. One daughter is falling back into lesbianism, the son is into grannies and masking it with a public love for teens, and there's another one who's into a very military buffed hot black dude. None of this is interesting, yet, I feel like when they were plotting out these characters that this was there starting idea and they'd just build from that.
"Hey, let's have a family of deviants, and then display all their emotions for about 10 episodes, for about 6 - 10 seasons." I feel like that was the pitch for this.
To me, a show must have a decent plot with at least one decent character to make a show worth watching. Or it must have some really exceptional scenery going on,(like Avatar). Transparent fails spectacularly at having characters you care about, and even worse it has no plot to fall back on. "Dad must come out as a transvestite/transsexual" to his family." That's the conflict here, and immediately you ask yourself "Are any of them in any position to judge him?" As I said, one is into grannies and the other is going back to lesbianism despite having a family and like 10 toddlers. The other one is basically a freeloader loser who is asking said dad for money after running through her "price is right" winnings. (Ironically, she's the only one remotely appealing, because the other daughter is sorta narcissistic and the brother makes comments about his sisters having barbecue sauce in their vaginas - because real family members say things like this over dinner)
No Plot + No Characters = me not caring
Also, my other point of disgruntlement, is the fact that IMDb wrote it up as a comedy. And, I don't think that anyone in this world would associate Tambor right now with anything not inherently funny. So I get that somebody along the way thought that this was a comedy.
BUT, there's nothing funny at all about this series except seeing Tambor in drag, which falls kinda in the cringe-comedy bucket, because Tambor is no Cillian Murphy/Jared Leto/Lee Pace.
That joke worked in Arrested Development, but that had the context to make it funny. That was a comedy.
Transparent is NOT a comedy. Maybe a dramedy, a bad one, but not a comedy. And it reeks of writers thinking "Oohh, this is so clever and fresh and raw and dark and deep", when it's actually just not any of these things.
I'd probably have given it a 5/10 or a 6/10 if it wasn't for stupid reviews building up my expectations. This is not fun. Not quirky. Not smart. Not clever. Not raw. Not dark. Not edgy. Not "real". Neither dramatic nor comedic. Just 29 minutes of "blah".
