B.J. Novak’s Anthology Series ‘The Premise’ Is a Timely Waste of Time
The Premise refers to itself as “An Anthology of Now,” which in practice means that it trades in irony-laden stories about modern technology, social justice, school shootings, celebrity, and social media.
Being timely, however, isn’t worth much, unless a show also has something insightful or amusing to say about its chosen subjects. That turns out to be the main problem with B.J. Novak’s new FX on Hulu series (Sept. 16), a tepid collection of sketchy notions in search of an overriding purpose or unanticipated point of view.
Novak enlists a formidable cast for The Premise, whose guiding m.o. is to establish a scenario and then upend initial expectations about its characters and outcome. Yet to successfully do that requires an ingenuity largely absent from these stand-alone tales, all of which are destined to end in one of two equally ponderous and/or preachy ways. For climactic ironic twists to work in such a format, they have to surprise—turning the tables not only on the fictional players, but on the audience’s assumptions, prejudices and confidence about the nature of the game being played. Here, though, what one largely gets is a pointed setup that develops along a straight line, with any occasional left turns so foreseeable and pedestrian that they do nothing to unsettle, stun or excite.