Created by and starring Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, and Stephen Colbert, this wacky adult sitcom follows Jerri Blank (Sedaris), a 46-year-old ex-drug addict who returns to high school after being released from a long stint in prison. With three seasons produced by and airing on Comedy Central, the series continually strives to offend, often in ways that haven't aged the best. Making fun of those very special episodes of many high school drama past and mixing in adult themes of sex and drugs, we end up with a raunchy, often shocking comedy that stars a great lead but is otherwise surrounded by very questionable creative decisions. While I did gut laugh multiple times over its run, much of the humour had me equally appalled and disappointed at its laziness. Most episodes contain plenty of eye-rolling race and sexual preference based humour, from the principal named Onyx Blackman (yeah, that lazy), to Dinello and Colbert's gay and in love but secretly closeted characters. It could be argued whether these stereotypes taken to extremes were really in poor taste or if they were actual somewhat intelligent commentary on those previously mentioned after school specials the show was satirizing and their often tone-deaf takes on social issues. So maybe the poor acting and horrid takes are excusable, but I don't know, I just don't buy it or believe that. Sedaris as Blank is hilarious, definitely the biggest draw to the show, her facial contortions and ticks grew on me over the series run. Her great physical comedy skills are something missed by her more recent voice acting roles (Bojack Horseman). I had started the series originally for Colbert, but again he has terrible acting throughout, his character just wasn't funny, however I managed to finish the series for Sedaris. I liked Danillos character and acting as well, was the be best besides Jerri herself, but again the humour was just not up my alley and too often rubbed me the wrong way, but maybe I'm just a prude. The best episode was the one where Mark McKinney, Winona Ryder, and Paul Rudd all show up at the same time, but unfortunately that's also literally the shows final finale, so you got to get through the rest to see it. I laughed harder at the Paul Rudd cool guy poses more than other part of the show, iykyk. Wouldn't ultimately recommend, but if it seems like you're kinda thing after one episode you'd probably like the rest.
Review of Strangers with Candy
