Note: Blunt Talk officially debuts on Starz on Saturday, August 22, but you can watch the first two episodes now at the official website.
Jonathan Ames’ series Bored to Death was one of the rare tragedies to come out of HBO in that it never seemed to make its mark like some of the network’s other programs, yet is undeniably one of the channel’s best comedies. Thankfully, the addictive blend of self-deprecating humor, angst, truth, and quirky characters lives on in the form of Ames’ new Starz comedy, Blunt Talk. Seth MacFarlane is also one of the executive producers, but it’s Ames, the show’s creator, who is guiding the series.
Walter Blunt (Patrick Stewart) is an aging TV pundit with addiction issues that suffers a very public arrest after soliciting a transsexual hooker and shattering the testicles of an arresting offer before standing atop his vintage Jaguar and reciting some Hamlet. That may sound insane at first glance, but in an era of TMZ and social media, it’s not at all a stretch to imagine something like this going down.
Particularly in the wake of the absolute disillusionment with media icons like Hulk Hogan and Bill Cosby, another celebrity personality crumbling under the weight of his own success and ego isn’t a fantasy. Ames knows this and smartly plays much of Blunt Talk as satire, aligning it closely with something like Veep or a live-action rendition of The Onion. By showing the insane antics that go on behind-the-scenes of something that traditionally demands respect – in this case, TV journalism – Blunt Talk is able to challenge our own ideas about the talking heads we see on TV blabbing about politicians night after night.
We’ve seen Patrick Stewart poke fun at himself time and again by playing against type or a heightened version of himself (his cameo on Extras springs to mind), but he absolutely shines in this notably out-of-character performance from the first scene to the last. TV certainly has no shortage of sex, drug, and alcohol addicted scuzzballs having a crisis of conscience, but Stewart and Ames are able to make Walter so damn likable that you can’t help but sympathize and root for him. It’s like watching your grandpa go on a bender.
Walter is genuinely nice to everyone; he’s a gentlemen to the prostitute and treats her with the utmost respect in and out of her presence, he is kind to his staff and appreciates their hard work, and he’s supremely appreciative of Harry (Adrian Scarborough), his old war buddy-turned-assistant. Blunt comes off as a perfectly decent human being that simply has his own demons, and it’s the key element that makes the show work.
Blunt Talk’s approach to humor isn’t typical set-up/punchline, but rather situational humor that comes at you fast with brilliant one-liners – another trait it shares with Veep. Stewart gets to deliver most of these this times around; highlights are the scenes with his staffers as he tries to convince them that interviewing himself on live television is a good idea, ultimately resulting in one of the most absurdly funny scenes in the show.
The staff of Blunt Talk all get a brief moment to shine in this first episode as well, signifying a strong supporting cast with plenty of room left to grow. It’s impressive how economic Ames is when presenting these characters, most of the staffers getting only a line or two in the episode yet showcasing their purpose and personal relationship to Walter very clearly. Richard Lewis as the network shrink assigned to Walter is underused here but his presence is felt, and the notion that he may be there both for the benefit of helping Walter get healthy and helping the ratings through more nefarious prescriptions was funny.
The only shortcoming of the episode is its ending, which ends on a note that feels false to the 29 minutes that came before it, let alone that it’s an obvious red herring. It’s not a deal breaker by any means, but it would have been nice to see the first episode end on a strong character beat instead of an empty attempt at a shock ending.
