The title of writer B.J. Novak’s new FX anthology series is essential to understanding its approach, and also its failure. One can easily picture a whiteboard in a writer’s room consisting of as many shocking “premises” as possible, ways to grab viewers in the first two minutes. There were probably phrases like “Butt Plug,” “Sex Tape,” and “Mass Shootings.” And every episode of “The Premise” does start with a hook. It’s how cynically and hollowly they unfold after that inciting incident that leads to problems.
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A few interesting performances from an ensemble that’s too talented for this show save it from complete disaster, but every single one of the five episodes of “The Premise” takes an admittedly interesting idea and almost stubbornly refuses to explore it, as if the very experiment of this series is one in shallow writing—can a single idea sustain a half-hour of television? Worst of all, it’s a show that rarely captures how actual human beings act in the real world, which places it in that uncanny valley between exaggerated satire and social commentary, merely falling into the forgettable space in between.
Of course, the first episode of this anthology series explores the concepts of social justice and allyship, how often people claim to support causes but retreat when really forced to put themselves on the line. Ben Platt stars as one of those young souls who doesn’t even see how shallow his online pursuit of social justice looks to most people as he tweets about the issues of the day without really doing anything about it (or having much of a knowledge base or life experience to back it up). There are thousands of people like Platt out there, but Novak never bothers to figure him out, turning him into a sequence of clichés and buzz words that’s as shallow as what he’s attempting to criticize.
Platt’s character is tested when he discovers that a sex tape that he happens to star in could get an innocent man (Jermaine Fowler) out of prison. While watching one of his life highlights for, well, reasons, he discovers that a famous arrest can be seen through the window, one that has led to a false charge of assault. He sends the tape to a young lawyer (Ayo Edibiri) and her mentor (Tracee Ellis Ross), and it ends up becoming the centerpiece of a trial in a way that’s neither funny nor believable. It’s not so much that “woke” social justice warriors are easy targets, even if they are, but that Novak has no teeth. Nothing here feels sharp enough, as limp a commentary as the hollow online behavior it purports to skewer.
Things get a little better, at least until a ridiculous ending, in “Moment of Silence.” The always-good Jon Bernthal plays the father of a 5-year-old who was shot in a school shooting. He decides to get a job as PR director at the National Gun Lobby, where he gets close enough to a colleague (Boyd Holbrook) that it derails his potential plan to turn his office into the site of a mass shooting. Novak never comes out and explicitly states that this man is going to shoot his co-workers, but it’s embedded in the storytelling as those around him keep asking him why he’s working there, and he shows off his remarkable marksman skills. Bernthal does a great job of selling a conflicted soul, but the writing, especially in the truly cheap ending, doesn’t know what to do with him.
Lucas Hedges does a clever riff on pop stars like Justin Bieber in “The Ballad of Jesse Wheeler,” another episode of “The Premise” with a clever set-up but absolutely no follow-through. At least this one has the best ensemble and tonal management, coming off like something that actually could have worked in longer form, giving its many characters more room to breathe life into it.
Hedges’ pop megastar comes back to his truly mediocre high school with a giant check to help build a new library, but the announcement doesn’t net him the rapturous applause to which he’s become accustomed, so he adds a little flavor. So he announces that he will also give a prize to the school’s valedictorian: He will invite them backstage to one of his concerts and have sex with the smartest kid in class. As the pop star’s manager (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and the school principal (George Wallace) panic, a girl named Abbi (Kaitlyn Dever) starts really hitting the books.
Using sexual freedom to explore celebrity and how it shapes young minds is easily Novak’s best premise, and yet even here he can’t figure out where to take it. After a clever, witty first act of character introductions, the episode stalls, before coming to life again in one of the few scenes in all five episodes that feels character-driven between Hedges and Dever, two performers who find a way to give their roles more depth than most others are allowed. And that it just abruptly ends. Still, there’s more to like here than the other chapters.
Once again, Novak has a strong premise in “The Commenter” (co-written by Jia Tolentino) and this one actually subverts the expectations of its set-up in that it first feels like it will be about vengeful trolling, but then actually shifts into something else more interesting for a bit. The problem is that the shift is ultimately half-hearted and aimless. Lola Kirke plays a young woman who starts getting mildly harassing comments about her fake smile and sense of fashion on her social presence and it rattles her—the idea that a woman with a strong online presence in 2021 wouldn’t be tragically accustomed to consistent harassment is one of Novak’s most baffling.
As she starts to question the support of those around her, including her partner (Soko), she discovers that she needs these kinds of harsh truths to really be happy. There’s so much here that could be explored regarding online conflict and echo chambers that the fact that it really slumps into nothing in its final scenes is again disappointing.
Finally, there’s an episode called “Butt Plug,” which exists mostly because B.J. Novak finds the repeated use of the phrase “butt plug” to be downright hysterical. Eric Lange plays a former bully who goes to his most common target in high school (Daniel Dae Kim), who is now one of the most successful business people in the world. The billionaire tells Lange that he will give him a year to develop the most impressive butt plug ever made and present it to his board of directors. Is it an act of vengeance or redemption? The actual presentation is clever, the kind of sharply written scene that one wishes had found its way into more of the previous four episodes, but this one too can’t stick the landing.
If there’s another season of “The Premise,” they should add two more columns to that whiteboard in the Writer’s Room: “The Follow-Through” and “The Ending.” The latter two are so absent here that one starts to wonder if it’s not part of the point Novak is making—and it should be noted that he will give introductions before each episode that weren’t available for press. One wonders if they’ll be apologies. [D+]
“The Premise” debuts on FX on Hulu on September 16.