Have you ever just absolutely killed at a party? Everything you’re saying is hitting. Every joke connects, every random aside delights? Then you use some of the same gags at work a few days later, and, again, you crush? Then you trot them out at dinner with a few friends, and there are laughs, but maybe not as enthusiastically? Three weeks later, you realize no one is laughing at your stuff anymore? That’s the arc of The Franchise.
It isn’t that the initial jokes aren’t good. They are. Some are great. Armando Iannucci and Jon Brown are two of the creators (along with Sam Mendes) with Brown handling some scripting. Therefore, as you might expect, the dialogue has their distinctive snap and gift for delightfully nasty profanity. Additionally, the likes of Billy Magnussen, Aya Cash, Himesh Patel, and Richard E. Grant, all of whom certainly know their way around a gag, deliver it.
However, while repetition can make some jokes funnier—see the Simpsons’ rake gag—it doesn’t work for them all. By episode four, it becomes clear that most of The Franchise’s witticisms are the ones that do not benefit from being repeated. The variations on a theme start to feel flat. The scripts find no way to heighten the punchlines. In superhero film parlance, they go to the giant portal in the sky, spewing energy too often. As funny as the first episode is, by the season’s end with episode 8, the laughs have become chuckles and the chuckles have become smiles. It’s never bad, but it does overstay its welcome.
A lot of scripted television faces this challenge, so characterization becomes essential. Viewers mind the “same old jokes” less when invested in the actions of the people on the screen. Unfortunately, the show is stubbornly resistant to giving the audience much to invest in.
Daniel (Patel) is our protagonist, a perpetually put-upon Assistant Director who seems to be the only person on set capable of managing any problems. Patel is a great performer who, I’ll admit, I want to see break out after a series of strong performances in projects both worthy of him (Station 11) and deeply not (Yesterday). However, past that one sentence, there’s little more to Daniel. Attempts to give him a rocky romantic past with the new producer Anita (Aya Cash) and a family his work keeps him from feel half-hearted at best. He’s hardly the only one who suffers from similarly listless attempts.
As a result, the more cartoonish characters tend to do best. The film within the show’s lead hero, Adam (Magnussen) and lead villain, Peter (Grant) get to play all the familiar notes of insecure and arrogant actor types. They may be tropes, but Grant and Magnussen make them dance. A mid-season monologue by Grant on the benefits of cancellation, for instance, is both tremendously funny and a clever bit of commentary on what the hell it even means to be canceled anymore. On the other hand, the director Eric (Daniel Brühl) is mostly cartoon but the series either forgets what to do with him or consciously chooses to stop doing it for multiple episodes.
Strangely, a few more minor characters get richer internal lives, making them pop. Jessica Hynes, as Eric’s assistant and handler, Steph, and Justin Edwards, as Rufus Maley, the extra who becomes increasingly important in the film’s production as the chaos mounts, have an entire subplot that yields more change for them than nearly everyone else in the cast. And it manages to find new and different jokes deep into the season.
All of this said, it’s important to note that this critic watched all eight episodes over about two days for this review. Viewers have the opportunity to watch The Franchise one episode a week for eight weeks. It is very possible that the show will play better consumed in a just under a half-hour dose watched once every seven days. What comes across as tired may feel fresher with that time to reset.
Taken in total, however, The Franchise feels like that one guest at the party. They have three incredibly funny stories, but you’ve heard them all 15 times. Suddenly, the walk across the room to take another look at the snacks starts to feel a lot more interesting than experiencing the sixteenth round.
The Franchise gets fitted for a cape starting October 6 on MAX.