Shark Lords (new "show" from the Big Time in Hollywood, FL guys)

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

It's been five years since Big Time in Hollywood, FL aired, and there hadn't been much news of Alex Anfanger or Dan Schimpf ever since. They actually have a new project, Shark Lords, but there's a catch. It's actually part of a comedy anthology show called Cake on FXX, as a long recurring segment (around 10 minutes of every episode of the second season). Cake has both live action and animation, and it's quite predictably very uneven. Schimpf and Anfanger are also involved in some capacity in two shorter recurring segments (the auditions and the troll in therapy).

Shark Lords is about two brothers (one with some brain damage), two extreme sports enthusiasts, who start an expedition on the ocean, with a very shocking goal in mind involving sharks. Three more people constitute the crew. The cast is Australian, apart from Anfanger, who takes an over the top accent. The dynamic is quite in line with Big Time, with two deluded brothers, some straight man that they restlessly bully for being the voice of reason (or, most of the time, for no reason at all) and some shocking ability to consider every bit of failure as a victory.

It's quite less episodic than Big Time, and the first two episodes are a little irritating, but it somehow finds some balance between the disgusting and the sweet elements. And last week, there finally was a cameo from another Big Time cast member.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've only seen one episode of Cake (2.4, as it goes) as initially I couldn't find it anywhere to download, but I didn't get on with what I saw of it, and thought Shark Lords was awful. Which is a shame as I love Big Time In Hollywood, FL, an enormous amount, but I'll give it another shot now that I know who it's by and hopefully it might click with me after a bit.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

It's unfortunately nowhere as good as Big Time, even when the pace improves.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

I've finished the whole thing, and it's indeed quite a disappointment.

There's never some real progress between the different episodes (apart from the occasional cliffhanger). The characters don't get fleshed out. And that's a huge letdown compared to Big Time. Alex Anfanger sticks to his usual silly optimism, putting a lot of energy into harebrained schemes and mild bullying, but the supporting characters are the real victims here, as they never get any actual development. While most of the biggest laughs from the previous show were provided by Jon Bass, Betsy Sodaro, Jason Alexander, Michael Madsen or even Cuba Gooding Jr. As a result, the plots get repetitive, it's all in the same place and setting and the finale (despite some dismemberment) could have arrived weeks earlier.

The most puzzling thing is that, according to the credits, Matt Thompson and Adam Reed, the guys responsible for Archer, Frisky Dingo and Sealab 2021, were also involved in the Shark Lords segments, as executive producers. It's a mystery why, with so much talent, the result is that uninspired.

About the rest of Cake, there's very little that I can say. It looks like a show built by some network executive who thought they had some notion about how the "Millennials" consume media. The other Anfanger-Schimpf segments are quite forgettable, even if Troll had a few moments, and the auditions (starring Matt Besser) got us a weird sex scene with Karen Gillan.

[Small Man Big Horse]

I've finished the whole thing, and it's indeed quite a disappointment.

There's never some real progress between the different episodes (apart from the occasional cliffhanger). The characters don't get fleshed out. And that's a huge letdown compared to Big Time. Alex Anfanger sticks to his usual silly optimism, putting a lot of energy into harebrained schemes and mild bullying, but the supporting characters are the real victims here, as they never get any actual development. While most of the biggest laughs from the previous show were provided by Jon Bass, Betsy Sodaro, Jason Alexander, Michael Madsen or even Cuba Gooding Jr. As a result, the plots get repetitive, it's all in the same place and setting and the finale (despite some dismemberment) could have arrived weeks earlier.

The most puzzling thing is that, according to the credits, Matt Thompson and Adam Reed, the guys responsible for Archer, Frisky Dingo and Sealab 2021, were also involved in the Shark Lords segments, as executive producers. It's a mystery why, with so much talent, the result is that uninspired.

About the rest of Cake, there's very little that I can say. It looks like a show built by some network executive who thought they had some notion about how the "Millennials" consume media. The other Anfanger-Schimpf segments are quite forgettable, even if Troll had a few moments,

That's disappointing to hear, I never bothered with the rest of it in the end and definitely won't now.

and the auditions (starring Matt Besser) got us a weird sex scene with Karen Gillan.

This however I would like to hear more about. Ahem.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

Karen Gillan is in episode 6.