tek's rating: ¾

The Great Indoors, on CBS
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Joel McHale plays an adventure reporter named Jack Gordon (who, aside from a different job, seems a lot like McHale's character on Community). At the start of the series, the magazine he works for, Outdoor Limits, becomes an internet-only publication. This means Jack will have to stop going out on adventures, and start overseeing the millennials who work at the magazine. They include a couple of guys named Clark (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and Mason, and a woman named Emma. Clark idolizes Jack, but Jack doesn't really like him or any of the millennials, at least at first. Other characters include Jack's boss and old friend, the founder of the magazine, Roland (Stephen Fry), as well as Roland's daughter, Brooke, who... I guess actually is Jack's immediate supervisor. (And like five years earlier, Jack and Brooke had a one-night stand, which is apparently a secret from everyone in the office.) Brooke is currently engaged to a guy named Paul, who is basically the blandest person in the world. Also, Jack has an old friend named Eddie, who runs a bar that Jack (and his new coworkers) spend a lot of time at. And there's a receptionist at the magazine named Esther, though she doesn't play a large role in the show. (Whenever Jack comes into work, he asks how she's doing, and she responds with some redonkulous anecdote about her personal life, which always makes Jack sorry he asked. And that's pretty much it.)

Anyway, the show's humor basically consists, by turns, of making fun either of millennials or of aging Gen X'ers like Jack, who can't quite adapt to the new ways of doing things. (The show tends to exaggerate both generations, somewhat, but mostly the millennials.) And later in the season, Jack starts dating a doctor named Rachel (Maggie Lawson), who seems quite compatible with him. But she eventually takes a job in Toronto, effectively ending their relationship. Also I should mention that Clark has romantic feelings for Emma, unbeknownst to her. That's a running plot thread that... well, makes some kind of progress at the end of the season. And... I dunno what else to say. I don't think it was exactly a good show, but I found it amusing enough to watch to the end of the season. And then it was cancelled, which didn't really surprise or disappoint me.


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