Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Weird City’ On YouTube Premium, Jordan Peele’s Anthology About Class Differences In A Futuristic City

Believe it or not, we’ve seen shows with the theme of Weird City before; The City and The City is basically about a shining new city and an old, crumbling city separated by a wall. But, Weird City‘s halves are separated by economics, not politics. And, because it comes from Joran Peele and Charlie Sanders, it’s a funny take on the class and economic gap we’re going through in this country. Read on for more…

WEIRD CITY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An explanation about how a city in the near future is structured: Haves above the line, Have-nots below. They literally made a barrier called “The Line.” We see an overhead shot of the bright, ultra-modern area above the line and the dark, old, dirty area below.

The Gist: Weird City is an anthology series that examines the widening class gap in our society. And, yes, it’s a comedy. It’s the vision of executive producers Jordan Peele and Charlie Sanders, and while there are elements of science fiction to the show, we’re not exactly talking about the distant future here.

In the first episode, “The One”, Stu (Dylan O’Brien), who grew up below the line but now lives above, has been having trouble on the dating scene (he can’t get assigned a mate because of where he came from). So he goes to a scientific matchmaking service called The One That’s The One, led by noted scientist Dr. Negari (LeVar Burton). And he ends up getting matched with… a 70-year-old guy named Burt (Ed O’Neill). Despite neither of them being gay, they find that they’re not only a lot alike, but they’re very attracted to each other, and they become a couple. They’re pretty happy until Negari comes along and said he made a mistake and, by the bylaws of their contract, they must break up.

The guest roster is impressive: Laverne Cox, Sara Gilbert, Gillian Jacobs, Steven Yeun, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Yvette Nicole Brown, Auli’i Cravalho, Hannah Simone, Awkwafina, Malcolm Barrett and more. There are a few recurring characters, like Burton’s Dr. Negari, but for the most part, the stories are all separate, but wit the same theme. The rich people above the line are clueless and not self-aware at how much privilege they have, while the people below the line may struggle, but they do just fine.

Our Take: Peele and Sanders (he plays an overzealous cop in one episode) aren’t particularly subtle about how the people in Weird City live. The ones above the line talk about prestige TV, wear shoes with individual toes, dine in places called You Must Eat Here, and live their lives via an ever-present operating system called Stephanie. They drink super-quadruple-IPAs, not lagers out of bottles. They treat organic cantaloupes like they’re children.

They do this for a reason, mainly to poke fun at the highfalutin way people with privilege live — including themselves and much of their audience — and how they have twisted views of the working class. But sometimes the message gets lost a little bit, depending on the story. Since “The One” is a simple love story grafted onto an unexpected pairing, it seems to work, even tough it’s a bit predictable. Seeing O’Brien and O’Neill getting closer via a standard romcom montage was one of the funniest moments in that episode, for instance. But the four people who “sponsor” an below the line youth in “Chonathan & Mulia & Barsley & Phephanie” are completely unfunny in their cluelessness about who lives below the line.

Still, there’s plenty to entertain in the episodes of Weird City that we saw, and while its viewpoint is definitely cynical, it’s also not afraid of happy endings, which can be in short supply on anthology series.

Sex and Skin: Besides seeing Stu and Burt plop into bed after some unexpected sex, not much.

Parting Shot: Let’s just say that Stu and Burt’s shared personality helps them after they are mandated to separate.

Sleeper Star: LeVar Burton, of course. He plays the weird Dr. Negari with just the right combination of smarminess and condescension.

Most Pilot-y Line: One of the border guards at The Line frisks Stu, says “I don’t normally like pattin’ people down, but when they’ve got muscles like you, I don’t mind so much,” and cackles like an insane person.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Like most anthologies, Weird City has its highs and lows. We’re thinking the highs are going to outnumber the lows by a lot.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream Weird City on YouTube Premium