5 out of 5

Created by: Jordan Shipley and Justin Shipley

covers season 1

I would say the tone Wrecked strikes is impossible, but it managed it, so that prevents that adjective from being applicable.  ‘Parody’ is more than likely the closest rightful term for it, Wrecked’s flight-crash island-bound survivors setup certainly coming across rather Lost-ish, especially with specific nods to some of that shows plot elements, but parody, to me, suggests something that can’t survive without it’s source material, and I’d argue that Wrecked actually remains more interesting in its first season than Lost’s bloated structure afforded, and can certainly stand on its own besides that.

Homage?  Perhaps.  The closest, tonally, to the plotted outlandishness Wrecked promotes would be Last Man on Earth, but again, the show is unique; LMoE ducks out of its great setup with some moralizing and somewhat dramatic (albeit filtered through Will Arnett) moments, whereas the backbone of Wrecked is, first and foremost, to make you laugh.  And yet I like the characters, who are much more than joke providers… which is where the plotted part comes in, and again cleaves us from comparisons to, say, Angie Tribeca – which, let’s note, has gone for a “story” in season two and completely unfunnied the show in the process, underlining how difficult (previously: Impossible) this balance is.

‘Nuff said?  Pretty much.  The basic story is ‘splained above.  The ten episode season does plenty with it, though, darting between the cast and flavoring the present with just enough flashbacks to flesh out their characters and let us chuckle at how they’ve either reinvented their island-selves or remained the same, but more importantly, the show flickers through a lot of cringe-humor send-ups of jamming a culture which hates actually interacting with one another into a technology-less setting that demands it, and then manages to one-up every joke it makes with an even funnier one, the internet-commenter’s observational jibe written into a working, scripted premise.  Its hilarious, and the show never stopped surprising me with where it would take these snipes, every beat I would figure on played out (but played out well, by a universally well cast funny lot) and then, out of the seeming blue, a final heckle that seals the laugh-out-loud deal.

Which is fantastic in itself, but that this is married to a story that has actual fun diversions and cliffhangers is a freaking brave new world.

There are plenty of comedies I tune into with the confidence that I’ll be laughing.  Wrecked is the first one to offer that appeal, plus the excitement of wanting to know what happens next.

Don’t Angie Tribeca the second season somehow, gang.