I'll have five Big Bang burgers

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2023 

#12 : I'm A Virgo

Anti-capitalist rabble rouser, satirical take on pop culture, a diatribe against caped crusaders: Boots Riley’s tale about a 13ft teenager wasn’t your average superhero series. Instead it was an inventive, lo-fi take on a genre it seemed to want to destroy from within. Given what an original and hyper-intelligent piece of storytelling it was, if it gets another season, it might just manage it.

Well, it's not unheard for me to come across something in this list which I'm completely unaware of, but I don't think I've ever had anything this high up in the list.  So my expectations are based entirely upon what The Guardian has told us above and I have to say they haven't exactly helped - so I guess I'm going to it pretty much blind.

And well, it's a very curious one.  I can agree it's about Cootie, a 13ft teenager, but apart from that I struggle to either confirm or deny what The Guardian says.  What it definitely is, is very, very weird with a load of off-kilter takes on pop culture references thrown into the mix with either little thought or so much thought that it completely passed me by.  Part of it could well be that it's very much skewed to black culture which is just so far from my cultural radar that it's not worth me commenting (and would be rude for me to do so) but even so, a lot of it just seems to be deliberately obscure or awkward - I just spent most of the time sitting there thinking "What is going on?!?".

I do have to admit I only gave it two episodes because it just felt like I was wasting my time - I can therefore completely confirm The Guardian's description of inventive, lo-fi and original but the jury is very much out on hyper-intelligent.  There's definitely a lot of knowledge behind the scenes, but whether it's usefully directed is, for me, a moot point - but I'm very happy to admit that I'm not in a position to comment, other than to say that it certainly didn't grab me enough to keep me engaged.

The acting is fine within the contexts of this being very lo-fi - Jharrel Jerome is engaging as Cootie and Olivia Washington (daughter of Denzel) also catches the eye as Flora, a potential love-interest who has some VERY peculiar costume changes.  Boots Riley (the writer/director) is very highly regarded which has resulted in an impressive list of guest stars across the season including Walter Goggins, Elijah Wood, Joel Edgerton, Juliette Lewis and Danny Glover.  Wikipedia also tells me that apparently this falls within the Afrosurrealist genre - which apparently has existed since 1974 and having read its entry I'm probably further away from understanding it than I was when I didn't even know it existed.

There's an awful lot of love for this on the internet so I feel I must be missing something and should maybe give it a bit longer - but I very nearly gave up on it after the first episode and the second one just confused me even more, so I think I have to accept it's not for me.  If your mind works in such a way that me not getting it means you fancy giving it a go, then it's on FreeVee on Amazon Prime - I'm more than happy for someone to try and explain to me what I'm missing, but miss it I very much did.

#11 - A slow burner, but well worth a watch
#14 - A really enjoyable comedy