āBirdgirl (Adult Swim, midnight, series premiere): Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law was a madcap celebration of cartoon history, office humor (pre-The Office), and a complex structure of endless callbacks and nonsensical running jokes. Unfortunately, Adult Swimās new revival/sequel series Birdgirl is only some of those things. Set after the death of Phil Ken Sebben (Stephen Colbert in the original series), the series centers on his daughter, Paget Brewsterās Judy Sebben/Birdgirl, as she tries to juggle her superhero work with her new job running her fatherās company. Brewster is still an absolute joy in the title role, but the world around her is a lot less interesting now. Part of that is due to Birdgirl dropping Birdmanās connection to the Hanna-Barbera library, which allowed the series to pack every scene with background gags and references. So far, Birdgirl hasnāt replaced the Hanna-Barbera jokes with anything. It just takes place in an office now, and the people (save for a talking dog and Judyās friend Meredith The Mindtaker) are just people and not zany supervillains or Funky Phantoms or Peter Potamuses. Birdgirl stands fine on its own and will be more enjoyable if you push Harvey Birdman out of your mind, butā¦ why do that?ā-Sam Barsanti.
This blurb from AV Club basically sums up my opinion on Birdgirl. Except I donāt agree it stands on its own. Most of the humor just doesnāt work. I canāt emphasize how bad the supporting characters are. One character is voiced by Tony Hale (Buster Bluth!) and I still donāt care for him at all. Pager Brewster is talented so this always had potential but just hasnāt lived up to it and based on the second season it looks like it never will. Also, I love the first few seasons of Archer but I think they did some irreparable harm to workplace animated comedies. Because every single one since Archer has just tried to rip it off without understanding why early Archer worked. For example, Birdgirlās secretary is very obviously a copy of Cheryl Tunt. These characters are just so very uninteresting. I beg you creative teams behind these shows, it is not that hard to create unique and interesting characters.
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