TV Retrospective: "Wet Hot American Summer:: First Day of Camp" - Season 1

It is a show that shouldn't exist. Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp is a conundrum of a project, considering that the original film failed to gross $300,000 only 14 years ago. Yes, it is one of those storied cult films with a cast so star studded that you'll be able to recognize half of these cast members. There really wasn't a desire to know about anything more from these characters, especially as the joke of significantly older actors playing teenagers only carries a project so much. The final payoff may come across more as baffling than successful, but that is David Wain's bread and butter over his very long career that started with The State and continued into directing films. This is a project that is successful in capturing the tone, but its feeling of being essential is absent and only makes its existence as baffling as Wain likely wanted.

In 2014, Wain directed a movie with many returning faces to this show. It was called They Came Together, which was a spoof of romantic comedies - specifically You've Got Mail. It hit all of the right notes and while making fun of a specific 90's film may seem baffling, it didn't isolate its audience. It showed the director to still be in top form and doing his own brand of antagonistic humor to strong effect. Along with the medical drama spoof Childrens Hospital, he has been on a roll in recent years and seems to be singlehandedly giving absurd humor a respectable place in comedy. 

Then there's this show, which picks up right before the events of the 2001 that shares the same name. It wasn't a hit nor is there anything that was missing. From the looks of the final eight episode series, there isn't much sense either. At most, you get a series of random origin stories and espionage plots that bring in a lot of new faces, including three Mad Men actors. You'll know if you'll like it based on one question: Did you like Wet Hot American Summer? Well, if you did, the uncomfortable older actor shtick mixed with deliberately pointing out everything 80's will appeal to you. Wain is firing on all cylinders, putting plenty of work into the dumbest of gags. The story is surprisingly fluid and despite the lack of great jokes that Wain has become known for, it just feels like a great excuse to do ensemble work that puts the recently resurrected Arrested Development to shame.

This isn't to say that First Day of Camp is bad. It is far from the worst thing that Netflix has produced. For starters, its plot is surprisingly smart in a way that counterbalances the dumbness. There's clever gags that have dumb payoffs. By the end, you're more impressed that the show simply crammed a lot of confusing elements into one package and managed to not make it incomprehensible. Fans of the movie will have an easy time liking this. Most everyone else may have trouble. It is consistent with the first and may be a fine satire on prequel TV series, but after four hours, the better question is what the point was. The awkward simplicity doesn't do most of the show justice.

Probably to Wain's detriment, the humor is also anti-humor to unfortunate extents. Despite its infusion with brilliance, there's whole segments dedicated to lo-fi productions that end up feeling rote and lazy. It is intentional, which means that if you find the recent trend of low grade productions and dialogue to be grating, this will be a tough sell. There's bad fart and sex jokes. There's awful singing and quick plot changes that make no sense, except to punctuate a joke. The show does this to a dizzying degree that it is easy to overlook. Wain has crafted something audacious among the lack of essential. Even the fact that majority of the story is supposed to happen in one day is also ludicrous. By the end, it becomes uncomfortably confusing to tell whether Wain's story is a genuine effort that entertains, or a big prank that is hilarious in how little it makes sense.
The cast is strong and there is a lot to admire about Netflix's weirdest show. For fans of Wain's humor, it is definitely worth a watch and may rank with BoJack Horseman as the network's current master of binge watching nature. It is thankfully short, not allowing even the grating kitsch to feel bloated. There's focus among the laziness that puts productions like The Spoils of Babylon to shame. Does it enrich fans of the film's opinion? Not likely. This is a gag that Wain managed to pull off that is just as essential as it is not. Then again, it may be the most insightful commentary on why the recent trend of TV show spin-offs from movies is rather useless. The best part of the joke? The final product does not suck all that much - at least unintentionally.



Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5