Avenue 5

The satire of Avenue 5 isn’t quite as sharp as some of Iannucci's other shows were right out of the gate, but there’s more than enough good stuff there to keep us curious as to where he’s going to take this story.

The laughs aren’t as rapid-fire as they were in “Veep,” but they are plentiful. Gad perfects that smarmy billionaire; Suzy Nakamura is ideal as his common law assistant. ... Laurie is ideal at the helm – even when the story seems like it’s rudderless. He plays captain in a way you wouldn’t think and handles disaster like Jean-Luc Picard never would. Make it so? “Avenue 5” does.

Avenue 5 gets sharper with each of the four episodes sent to critics, which bodes well for what lies ahead, when the bulk of the world-building is done. It isn’t Veep, sure, but there are traces of Selina Meyer in Ryan; both are smug, two-faced charlatans entrusted with far more power than they deserve. The show also benefits from Iannucci’s dark, profane, literary sensibility.

“Avenue 5” is a surefire hit and will bolster HBO’s reputation as the best place to go to view unique, well-thought-out comedies. Although there were some comedic inconsistencies in the first four episodes I watched, when the humor hits the mark, and it does quite frequently, “Avenue 5” is laugh out loud funny.

Putting aside any expectations for another serving of Iannucci’s savage satire, Avenue 5 is still a sharply-written comedy with a strong cast and an enjoyable mix of highbrow punchlines, broad physical comedy, and silly sight gags, one involving a radiation shield of human excrement.

If the fact that this character literally is named Karen strikes you as either too clever or else somewhat dumb, then this is not the show for you. “Avenue 5” is distinguished by a high-low sensibility in which poop jokes are about waste and entropy and fatal pollution but also, foremost, about tons of poop, the sight of which lightens the mood.

A splendidly silly vehicle of knockabout farce among the stars. [20 Jan - 2 Feb 2020, p.9]

Their ambitions are relatively modest in a day when Greatness Is All. But greatness can be overrated, and both series [Avenue 5 and Medical Police] are expertly played, with more than a modicum of good jokes and enough plot to keep you going, made by intelligent people unafraid to look dumb.

Fans of Iannucci’s razor sharp wit may be let down by a show that doesn’t have the laughs per minute of his last HBO Emmy juggernaut, but be patient and you’ll find that “Avenue 5” develops into its own bizarre creation, a commentary with memorable characters on how disaster makes actors of us all. I’m not sure how this plays out over the run of a series, but it will certainly be entertaining to watch it unfold.

It wouldn't be wrong to say Iannucci is slightly better with what worked on Veep, but Avenue 5 is plenty funny if you can launch the Veep comparisons out of the airlock. (Besides, let's be fair here, can anything be as good as Veep?) With a strong cast and Iannucci's unpredictable sense of humor, there's real potential that Avenue 5 can go a long way.

Avenue 5, is perhaps best approached — as a comic Poseidon Adventure in space. Such a perspective might benefit the first couple episodes, which don't stumble so much as they unfold and reveal themselves in ways that aren't always quite as funny as they should be, though things become more amusing after chaos starts ensuing.

A lot of Avenue 5’s issues do boil down to the growing pains of a high-concept comedy and how that hinders the rapid-fire joke machine one would expect from Iannucci. Even if you’re not familiar with his past work, this is still the case: The jokes aren’t king, the setup and the full story itself is.