3 out of 5

Created By: Michael Ian Black

covers season 1 and 2

The plus and minus of Adult Swim’s freedom is one and the same: by encouraging such a wide, encompassing swarm of different styles of creativity – especially with Tim and Eric having opened up the doors to live action – it’s hard to let go when something awesome happens.  ‘Children’s Hospital’s first season was ridiculously funny; ‘Superjail’s’ first season was a marvel of animated mayhem; ‘Metalocalypse’ began as silly send-up of a nice.  CH and SJ made the cut to full seasons and full length episodes, requiring different styles of plotting that distilled their essences, and ‘Metal’ wanted to jump on the Venture Bros. boat of building plotlines but lacked that show’s intelligence.  ‘You’re Whole’ hasn’t really dipped in quality at all, but one has to wonder why it’s proceeded past its first season (3 episodes) since its setup is rather slim: Michael Ian Black playing infomercial host for his (under the name Randall Tyree Mandersohn ‘You’re Whole’ 27-volume inspirational DVD series.  Yes, we could, theoretically, have enough episodes to cover each of the 27 volumes (and the spin-offs like ‘You’re Gay Whole’), but the shtick already starts to feel a bit repetitive into season 2, despite there being some good chuckles and occasional guffaws along the way.  This is not to discredit, really, anything about it directly – the format works perfectly for Black and the production design is a flawless send-up; there are some hilarious minor touches (during credits stuff, background characters) that The State crew always excelled at; and it’s actually admirable (even though I’m criticizing it for this) that the show hasn’t tried to ‘spice’ things up in any significant way, since that would somewhat betray the infomercial parody.  Though you can tell that things might start to get rougher from here on out since the ‘no one’s in on the joke’ setup has started to be abandoned.

Unfairly, had it been just season one, I probably would’ve rated this Tops Bloopy.  But I made the mistake (?) of watching all the episodes available in one sitting, during which it becomes apparent that an impression or joke can only be funny for so long… and then it becomes hard to stand by this project as a recommendation beyond one or two eps.  So while it doesn’t really belong in the same disappointing category as the shows mentioned above, it’s still another cautionary tale of ‘careful what you wish for’ syndrome relating to TV, which haunts every viewer who’s demanded for one more season only to have that season be poo.

Haunts, I tell ya’.