Even with this show being new, There's been a couple episodes that made me almost want to stop watching, but this show pulled me back in- This episode had the feel good-throw in some jokes mix that i like in a show. Made me excited for the next episode to come out.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Superstore
(2015–2021)
Good idea, not super good execution
18 February 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Full disclosure: i didn't finish the entire show- i got around halfway through season 6 before giving up.
TLDR: a pretty subpar comedy that had some good funny moments about working in retail, but is weighed down by poorly done plot, poorly done political commentary, and characters that became caricatures of themselves.
I work in a superstore, so i was pretty excited to try this show out, and while it does have some pretty funny moments, a lot of it just falls flat. There are a lot of funny things, that even if exaggerated a bit, do give me a good "this is true" chuckle, but unfortunately, a good amount of the show kinda misses the mark.
A few complaints I have: 1-It feels like most seasons get their big end of season idea rolling towards the end of the season, finishes on a big cliff hanger, and then resolves the issue so everything returns to normal a few episodes into the next season and then it basically never gets mentioned again. This happened with the strike/union (twice), Mateo's run in with ICE, and the tornado. After the first few seasons, I started to kind of dread the end of the season, as i knew something over the top would come, that would end up just being ignored.
2- As the seasons went on, it felt like some of the characters lost the slight relatability that made them fun, and turned way over the top- Jonah started off as a kinda annoying guy, and by the end I wondered why anybody liked being around him. Sandra started off as kinda a loner that nobody cared about, but as the seasons rolled on, they had things like making Dina her maid of honor, and her taking up more and more in the story. Dina went from being a bad person that nobody liked, to being a bad personthat people are oddly close to.
3- The few episodes in seasons that were chronologically out of order. The two I remember are the Olympics one and the covid one. It felt really jarring for it to just drop a huge plot point to throw in a trying to be relatable episode. Neither of the episodes were memorable enough to be worth interrupting a bigger story (even if both bigger stories were also kinda lackluster in ways)
4- the show did at times get a little too preachy. Now don't get me wrong, i enjoy political commentary when done well, and there were a couple of times I thought it was done pretty nicely- for example, I thought the first strike having a few random groups (like transphobes) trying to take over the purpose of the strike was alright, and I got a chuckle out of it, but it seemed even from season 1 it would at times get a little too on the nose. A couple of examples I remember- in the episode about mobile orders, I remember Jonah making a comment about how they would have to start peeing in bottles that felt like he basically looked at the camera so we would get he was making a comment about Amazon.
Theres also the episode about more casual racism in season 6 that I have already seen a good amount of critiques about, where it felt a little hamfisted in- don't get me wrong the show had been pretty obvious from season 1 that it would support BLM (Full disclosure: so do I), but the hair product episode felt like instead of being a comedy about the issue, they just kinda forgot the comedy and just lectured/ talked about racism. Don't get me wrong, there's proper ways to discuss these very real and big issues, but a comedy being made by a big company just felt really forced.
Another more specific part that felt very poorly done, is how they had a couple of episodes talking about ICE and some of the problems with immigration control/ however you want to word it and then dropped it. If the writers wanted to use something as serious and real as someone being deported, they should stick to their guns instead of getting an emotional reaction out of the audience and then basically never bringing it up again.
I would never recommend this show to anyone I know, but overall I do think some of the 1 star reviews are a little harsh on just how bad it was- it's more mediocre then downright bad if you average it all.
TLDR: a pretty subpar comedy that had some good funny moments about working in retail, but is weighed down by poorly done plot, poorly done political commentary, and characters that became caricatures of themselves.
I work in a superstore, so i was pretty excited to try this show out, and while it does have some pretty funny moments, a lot of it just falls flat. There are a lot of funny things, that even if exaggerated a bit, do give me a good "this is true" chuckle, but unfortunately, a good amount of the show kinda misses the mark.
A few complaints I have: 1-It feels like most seasons get their big end of season idea rolling towards the end of the season, finishes on a big cliff hanger, and then resolves the issue so everything returns to normal a few episodes into the next season and then it basically never gets mentioned again. This happened with the strike/union (twice), Mateo's run in with ICE, and the tornado. After the first few seasons, I started to kind of dread the end of the season, as i knew something over the top would come, that would end up just being ignored.
2- As the seasons went on, it felt like some of the characters lost the slight relatability that made them fun, and turned way over the top- Jonah started off as a kinda annoying guy, and by the end I wondered why anybody liked being around him. Sandra started off as kinda a loner that nobody cared about, but as the seasons rolled on, they had things like making Dina her maid of honor, and her taking up more and more in the story. Dina went from being a bad person that nobody liked, to being a bad personthat people are oddly close to.
3- The few episodes in seasons that were chronologically out of order. The two I remember are the Olympics one and the covid one. It felt really jarring for it to just drop a huge plot point to throw in a trying to be relatable episode. Neither of the episodes were memorable enough to be worth interrupting a bigger story (even if both bigger stories were also kinda lackluster in ways)
4- the show did at times get a little too preachy. Now don't get me wrong, i enjoy political commentary when done well, and there were a couple of times I thought it was done pretty nicely- for example, I thought the first strike having a few random groups (like transphobes) trying to take over the purpose of the strike was alright, and I got a chuckle out of it, but it seemed even from season 1 it would at times get a little too on the nose. A couple of examples I remember- in the episode about mobile orders, I remember Jonah making a comment about how they would have to start peeing in bottles that felt like he basically looked at the camera so we would get he was making a comment about Amazon.
Theres also the episode about more casual racism in season 6 that I have already seen a good amount of critiques about, where it felt a little hamfisted in- don't get me wrong the show had been pretty obvious from season 1 that it would support BLM (Full disclosure: so do I), but the hair product episode felt like instead of being a comedy about the issue, they just kinda forgot the comedy and just lectured/ talked about racism. Don't get me wrong, there's proper ways to discuss these very real and big issues, but a comedy being made by a big company just felt really forced.
Another more specific part that felt very poorly done, is how they had a couple of episodes talking about ICE and some of the problems with immigration control/ however you want to word it and then dropped it. If the writers wanted to use something as serious and real as someone being deported, they should stick to their guns instead of getting an emotional reaction out of the audience and then basically never bringing it up again.
I would never recommend this show to anyone I know, but overall I do think some of the 1 star reviews are a little harsh on just how bad it was- it's more mediocre then downright bad if you average it all.
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