TV Recap: Red Oaks

Amazon has an interesting collection of original video programming. They have all the money in the world but continue to fund shows that USA or TNT would air. Which in itself is not fair because most of the TV watching public loves absolute garbage TV. But as a brand name, even as a second tier, they have never come even close to the level of excitement Netflix's shows can provide. I'm not even sure how many people realize Prime shipping also happens to come with all these streamable options. There is hope for Amazon though. The Man in the High Castle pilot was really great and the full show debuts next month. And they did pay Woody Allen a lot of money, so I'm not sure he can weasel out of that agreement.

Red Oaks, like Betas, is an enjoyable show, a notch or two above that USA level. That almost sounds like a harsh critique, but, again, I liked it. In fact I watched every episode in an afternoon. The shows follows David, a rising college junior home for the summer working as a tennis instructor at a country club set in the 80s. Richard Kind plays his father. Paul Reiser plays the owner of the country club. Like Betas, it's maybe technically a comedy, but it's not a show that's focused on a jokes. It simply follows this small group of people for different days throughout the summer.

What drives the show forward are the different scenarios of boy has girlfriend A but realizes he's interested in girl B. But the show seems to be more ambitious than that. It just never actually does. In the first episode, David's dad has a heart attack and admits to David that he should have married someone else and that his wife might be a lesbian. There are some marriage counseling scenes, but it's not fully explored. So why mention it at all? Then there's the career dilemma. David's dad wants him to be an accountant but that's something he'd rather not do. Again, touched on but not much else beyond that.

At its heart, it's a bunch of kids shirking responsibilities figuring themselves out. But also, it's a bunch of white kids working at a country club. Shout out to the Indian comic from Guy Code that got a two second cameo delivering flowers.