Round Two: The Great Indoors

The Great Indoors: Season 1, Episode 2 “Dating Apps” (B-)

I had high hopes for this show after its promising start last week, and I’m not too demoralized by this installment, just not as impressed as I was with its first go-around. Maybe it’s that the notion of moving over to digital and away from the outdoors is slightly more creative and compelling than the most formulaic of all setups: the creation of the dating profile. It’s no surprise that Jack is being a stick in the mud (nature reference = purposeful) about wanting to advertise himself exactly as he is and not conform to any new societal expectations, but there’s such an enormous discrepancy between what he wants to display and the presentation put on for him by the millennials. There’s a part of his ego that presents itself in a way lacking all self-awareness, like his recollection of his date asking him what his mother’s maiden name was and his porn star name and all that, yet doesn’t permit him to recognize that he took a selfie with a post-it with his username and password reflected in the mirror for the whole world to have and steal his identity with. Stephen Fry’s Roland didn’t have any hilarious moments in this episode, instead relegated to telling Jack bad news about old friends who were really just disguised alcohol brands. Clark in action is pretty funny, and his repeated pronunciation of his name as “Glark” was a highlight. Two lessons I learned in this episode – there’s already a real-life dating app called a bar, and, for some, 3G is already enough Gs. I’ll give this show another shot to see how it does in week three.