“The New Cup”
January 25th, 2009
It’s been a while since I visited Flight of the Conchords’ sophomore season, having reviewed last week’s premiere back in December when it was streaming online, but I have to say that I think “New Cup” is perhaps a slight improvement on some fronts and a bit of a step back in others.
The show is, largely, back to its old self in most ways here: the Murray/band dynamic is as inspired as ever, and their seasons crackle here. The problem is that the rest of the plot doesn’t, so much: comparatively, the dialogue seems forced and tired, and the prostitution storyline felt off for me. This is a bit of a shift, though, because I found the songs superior to that in the premiere, more tied to the action; it’s just unfortunate, then, that they were tied to the part of the episode that felt the most sitcom-esque and lacked what I view as the fundamentals of the show’s usual charm.
The basics are all here, don’t get me wrong: what other show can spin off of a new cup and suddenly spiral into prostitution, lewd rap songs about genitalia, and a ripoff of Roxanne? The show is still great at showing how the mundane can be exciting, but this felt a bit too exciting for its own good by a certain point.
Cultural Learnings 