2 out of 5

Created by: Simon Rich

Don’t get me wrong – I laughed plenty during the first season of ‘Man Seeking Woman,’ and some of those laughs were full-on belly laughs.  The first four episodes or so pretty ingeniuously re-imagine all the horrors and discomforts of breaking up and dating again in the modern world.  Certainly not a new topic, but our burgeoned acceptance of surreal humor in television – which the show liberally takes advantage of – and its bitter stance toward romance gives it enough of a bite to feel different than the usual ‘looking for love’ series.  Jay Baruchel is perfectly cast to use his uncomfortable shtick to make the hapless loser lead relatably human in that Woody Allen way, and amazing production design helps to bring fantastic scenarios (a wedding in Hell; a war-room dedicated to answering text messages) to life.  But at some point, I just felt like the show… ran out of ideas.  Not laughs, and not zany ways of representing things, but it no longer felt like a unique take on the genre, and started instead to feel just like a very, very typical bro comedy with some “wouldn’t it be funny if” gags.  Like physically losing ones penis after drinking to represent the… pitfalls of drunk sex.  It’s definitely funny, but it’s not quite the same as the “wizard eyes” gag used to explain why dating seems so easy for everyone else, because it’s just a spin on something instead of stepping outside of the situation and designing a fantasy world explanation, as in the latter scenario.  So I couldn’t help but feel let down by the initial setup, despite laughing most of the way through.  The rating might seem rather mean, then, since I’m admitting to getting my chuckles, but the notable divide in humor within just a short 10-episode season is too much a contrast to ignore, and to not feel like there was some really, truly inventive stuff around the corner if the writers had pushed themselves just a little bit further.  What starts as a good dig into the human experience quickly turns into – beneath the snazzy surface – just another dude comedy.