Well, that’s it. All of season 2 of Review has aired. It’s all yours now, to watch, rewatch, binge-watch, wrist watch etc. It’s great to know that all 19 of the episodes we’ve made so far will always be available – on iTunes, the Comedy Central app or whatever the huvuflixflexbox of the future may be. I look forward to hearing from the late discoverers of tomorrow but I am especially thankful to all you magnificent people out there who have not yet figured out how to cancel your cable and who used it to watch Review these past 10 weeks. It has been a great pleasure to experience the season with you.
But that is barely the beginning of the thanks that I intend to offer here. I’m full of gratitude tonight and, with your indulgence, would like to shed some light on people who’s contributions to the show have, I feel, gone under appreciated. As the face of the show, I get most of the attention and too much of the credit. That ends now god dammit!
First let me say that this is an amazing time to be working at Comedy Central. Jeff Blitz and I (more about him soon) know well how lucky we are to work with network folks who trust us to deliver something great and give us helpful notes and understand that we can’t always see our way to implementing them. Their faith is us makes us do the best work we know how to do. So thanks Comedy Central and Kent Alterman in particular. Screen Rant recently published a list of the 10 funniest shows on TV and 5 of them were developed under Kent Alterman at Comedy Central. That’s no coincidence. Kent loves comedy, appreciates talent and knows when to jump in and when to let people run free. He’s stuck his neck out for me and this show, so thanks Kent!
The name Jeff Blitz is conspicuously absent from most of what’s been written about Review. It was true in season 1 and it’s true in season 2. It ain’t right. Jeff runs the writing room with me and is responsible for so much of what you like about Review, so many of its greatest moments. And as the director of every episode, he created the look and feel of the show and fosters an atmosphere that allows everyone in the cast and crew to do their best work. Give the man his due!
And Andy Blitz too! He was our other Executive Producer this season, always providing wise council, hilarious jokes and a sensibility all his own. He gave life – and death – to Clovers among many many other wonderful contributions.
The rest of our writers – Leo Allen, Jessie Cantrell, Kevin Dorff, Gavin Steckler and Rich Talarico all made huge and hilarious contributions to every episode. A murderers row of comedy geniuses expertly and collaboratively bringing a sense of “yes and” to our room discussions that allowed this season to reach it’s crazy heights. Thanks, you guys!
Nate Young produced the fuck out of this show! It doesn’t really make any sense what we were able to accomplish this season given our budget. We destroyed multiple houses, lost a man at sea, had a full scale battle scene, transformed me into an orange Hulk, and so on and so on. I kept waiting to be told “you can’t do any of this” but Nate made it happen and somehow always kept his cool. Thanks Nate!
I also can’t say enough great things about our amazing editors, Yana Gorskaya and Dane MacMaster. If you think of editing as a technical exercise, you need to see some great editors at work. They’re every bit the storytellers that our writers and actors are. So many of our best moments were created by Dane and Yana and many of my favorite pieces of Forrest narration were inspired or suggested by them. PLUS they know how to use computers and stuff. I am in awe of them.
I don’t need to tell you how great our supporting cast and guest actors were. You saw that for yourself. But it’s worth mentioning here that every single person we brought into our little world to play with us was a total joy to spend time with. And that goes for the crew too. DP Ben Kasulke is an unfailingly positive and happy spirit and so is our other cameraman Marc Carter. Our sound departments, hair, makeup wardrobe, all total sweethearts who did fantastic work.
There are many more people who worked on this show who deserve a special shout out here, people like our very talented writers’ assistant Joe Dolce who transcribed hours and hours of deeply boring conversations about who Forrest is and what he would and would not do and kept a steady stream of iced coffee flowing through my adrenal system. Thank you Joe! And what about Casey Stewart? And Jason Williams? And Vladimir, the man who falls down stairs so I don’t have to and taught me how to punch Rich Talarico at that ATM? So so many great people helping to make this show that I am so very proud of. Thank you thank you thank you.
And how about a shout out to my incredible wife Carri Levinson who was not only great as Beth in this season’s second episode – in a scene that will one day cause our children to run away from home – but also kept me together during the crazy year it took to make this season and is the wisest and funnest person to talk to about Review (and everything else). Thanks Carri!
And the last thing I’ll say is that if this is a golden age of television, it’s also a golden age of writing about television. I can’t believe the thoughtful and incredibly well-written articles that people have published about our show this year. I’ll close with a bunch of links to some of the articles we at Review have loved the most. And yes, this will serve as a kind of a victory lap because we got some amazing review this season and I would kind of like for you to read ‘em.
Well no, the LAST thing I’ll say is that we don’t know yet whether we will or won’t get to make any more episodes of Review. I’ve heard from a bunch of people who would love to see another season and we would love to make one and I will keep you posted. Okay thanks again for watching. It’s been fun ride (for me, not Forrest).
Emily Stephens reviewed every episode of Review season 2 for The AV Club. This is a link to her review for the season premiere. All of these are great and though I was afraid to at first, I read a lot of the comments too and man, I enjoyed them.
http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/review-brawl-blackmail-gloryhole-223083
Emily Nussbaum, writing for The New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/rate-culture
Here’s the piece Emily Nussbaum cites, Sean T. Collins’ interview with James Urbaniak for The Observer:
http://observer.com/2015/08/the-walter-white-of-comedy-james-urbaniak-on-review-and-rise-of-funny-antiheroes/
Neil Genzlinger in the New York Times. The New York Times!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/30/arts/television/comedy-centrals-review-and-its-hapless-critic-return.html?_r=0
And then, of course, there’s this important food for thought by Jenny Jaffe and Gabriel Laks, writing for Vulture:
http://www.vulture.com/2015/09/review-takes-place-in-purgatory.html
