Conchords Blogging: Be More Constructive With Your Criticism

Yay, Flight of the Conchords is coming back for another season. Love that show. Although, I haven't made mention of it before. Partly because I have to rely on an underground relay of worn VHS (For which I must, in turn, subject myself to the rigors of Top Chef in order to participate. I should probably just find a torrent site and rip the damn things off but, you know, family.) tapes in order to catch an episode but also because, as the wise folks say, you can't blog

about the Conchords. Just can't do it.

Nothing happens in the funniest way possible.

Not Seinfeld “nothing” because that show was at least firing off jokes rapid fire. The Flight of the Conchords, on the other hand, is slow-paced, almost leisurely, as it revels in its ennui. So much so that you'll almost miss the wicked satirical barbs being thrown about. Because the show is as much about the subtle nuance as it is the juxtaposition of the restrained waking life of the characters to the over the top musical numbers.

I mean, take my favorite episode so far, #3 - “Mugged”. You can describe the plot as follows: Brett and Jermaine have a falling out after they're mugged but soon reconcile. But that glosses over everything that makes the episode good. Like the monkey and the thugs who's relationship mirrors the protagonist's own. Or the killer take on the Crocodile Dundee knifey/spooney game. The little touches like the ingenious “camera phone” or the giant swipes of parody like, well, this:

It defies description unless, of course, you want to get all pseudo-intellectual and wring the humor out of it by dissecting just what it is that makes the jokes so funny. No, you can't blog about the Conchords, but what you can do is share the joy through the magic of embedded video players. You can find all sorts of stuff on YouTube of course, but I'll stick to the copyright friendly offerings at the HBO site.

The dead-on parodies contained within the show's musical numbers are especially good fodder. Take, for example, this play on the Lord of the Rings. It's especially apt since the Conchords hail from New Zealand where the series was filmed. And, of course, Jermaine is (non-canon) Figwit.

Then there's the way the band will just capture a musical style, so well. Like this twisted rat pack, Vegas lounge lizard number:

Or a specific artist like this ode to David Bowie:

But, really, what makes these numbers work is the....Conchordy humor that so defeats any attempt to explain it sucinctly. Like the beginning of this one. “She's so hot, it's making me sexist. Bitch.” Boom.

What carries the show, though, are the smaller moments. The ones that don't translate as well to a world of viral clips and instantly memorable moments. But here's a glimpse:

There's just an impressive amount of effort that goes into making it look so easy.