X
- 2022
- TV-14
- Netflix
- 2022
- TV-14
- Netflix
Summary Timmy Yoon (Randall Park) and the staff at the last Blockbuster store in America seek to keep it open in this comedy series created by Vanessa Ramos.
Created By: Vanessa Ramos
- 2022
- TV-14
- Netflix
- 2022
- TV-14
- Netflix
Blockbuster
Season 1 Premiere: Nov 3, 2022
45
3.9
Where to Watch
Summary Timmy Yoon (Randall Park) and the staff at the last Blockbuster store in America seek to keep it open in this comedy series created by Vanessa Ramos.
Created By: Vanessa Ramos
Where to Watch
All Seasons
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 23 Critic Reviews
45
4% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
74% Mixed
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
22% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 23 Critic Reviews
45
4% Positive
1 Review
1 Review
74% Mixed
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
22% Negative
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
Nearly every character in Blockbuster exemplifies a version of this tension: adulthood and childhood, intersecting at awkward angles. That makes the show, like so many of its fellow workplace comedies, an apt reflection of its time. ... Blockbuster becomes not just a workplace comedy but also a family comedy and a buddy comedy. ... Blockbuster is comedy infused with loss, as a fact and as a looming threat. It is a show fit for a moment shaped by regressions.
There’s a lot of squandered potential here. The lack of focus on the customers is an easy win missed. And while the lack of a “big bad” may be refreshing but means the show lacks any sense of real peril or urgency. By the halfway mark we lose sight of the driving force of the show and slip into soapy silliness.
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 32 User Ratings
3.9
22% Positive
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
28% Mixed
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
50% Negative
16 Ratings
16 Ratings
User Score
Generally Unfavorable
Based on 32 User Ratings
3.9
22% Positive
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
28% Mixed
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
50% Negative
16 Ratings
16 Ratings
This is a fun show. I really liked every character and their individual moments and quirks, but didn’t feel like there was a particular standout. I was invested in Timmy and Eliza's relationship, which serves as the main narrative through line for the season, and the rest of the characters each had their share of resonant moments. Individual episode plots were good, but I feel there could have been more or stronger season long narrative threads. Dialogue was strong for the most part. I found most of the jokes funny and the emotional scenes hit, but there was a lack of stand out lines and scenes that I feel shows like this need. Cinematography was fine, some poor CGI in one episode, but I feel that this should have been one of the series strong suits considering Carlos' desire to become a director. Overall, while there wasn't anything that particularly stands out, I enjoyed my time watching the show and look forward to next season.
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Great comedy with some heart if you like shows like Brooklyn 99, Good Place, New Girl, Single Parents, and Happy Endings. These type of shows some of my favs, always on the hunt for more like them. This isn’t quite as good as those but still a very enjoyable watch. I’m confused by these other negative reviews, maybe not really the type of show to appeal to the Netflix crowd? Let’s hope there is a season 2! Don’t let me down Netflix.
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A cute, affable, and fairly forgettable workplace comedy that takes place inside the last remaining of the stores, and uses it mostly for general shenanigans that would work any other place.
Without much idea of how to capitalize on its uniquely compelling premise, Blockbuster winds up a fairly standard-issue workplace sitcom dressed up in blue-and-yellow logos that might strike a chord with viewers of a certain age.
Maybe if Blockbuster leaned further into that meta self-awareness, there would be more about it to recommend. But the thing that makes it special, the connection to Blockbuster, is essentially ignored, resulting in a workplace comedy that isn’t particularly unique or memorable. Instead, there’s commentary about the differences between millennials and Gen Z that isn’t novel or clever.
There’s no sense of anarchy in Blockbuster. Nor tension, not warmth; it’s a shallow, tiresome journey that isn’t courageous enough to dip its toes into the wacky, unhinged potential of working in an unsupervised relic.
Painfully obvious jokes made at the expense of painfully obvious targets abound. If you fed the jokes from any number of early-2000s sitcoms into an AI generator, it would probably spit out something resembling Blockbuster.
PROS: It's nice to have a show to remind you of all the good days of blockbuster the atmosphere isn't spot on but if your looking for something to just put on it's good to zone out on. It's not the worst show to watch.
CONS: Hopefully the portrayal of being a blockbuster employee improves In the next season, also the pacing could use work. I will give it a mediocre rating for, "trying but is a lackluster."
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I want to rate this a grade or two higher just because of the talent involved, including producer/creator Vanessa Ramos (Brooklyn 9-9, Superstore) and David Caspe (Happy Endings), along with sitcoms pros Randall Park, Melissa Fumero and J.B. Smoove. Being a Universal production and rated TV-14, it feels like a half hour workplace comedy you'd find on a Thursday night at 9:30 on NBC. That's not a bad thing. Some of the lines are funny and quirky. It's just a case of familiarity. Park plays the nicest guy in the room. Fumero is playing a slight variation of Amy from Brooklyn. And Smoove is Smoove, whether it's Curb or Ceasars commercials, he's always...well, Smoove. Quite honestly how this ended up on Netflix and not Peacock is baffling.
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Another souless, generic Netflix comedy that's more concerned with pushing a political agenda than the actual comedy. Made it halfway through the pilot episode before I could take no more.
The box checking cast of inadvertently stereotypical characters also had zero chemistry with one another. These shows have to stop. If you have nothing to say, why even speak?
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Production Company:
- Davis Entertainment
- Universal Television
Initial Release Date: Nov 3, 2022
Number of seasons: 1 Season
Rating: TV-14
Genres:
Awards
ReFrame
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
