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Laid the Complete First Season
Watching
the full season of Laid from start to finish is kind of like
eating a soft serve ice-cream - light, inoffensive, and pleasant enough
for what it is - only to discover an anchovy at its core. At its best,
Laid is little more than “nice enough”, but by the end it is
offensively bad.
The premise is this: a trendy 20-something inner-surburban woman (the
less charitable amongst us would describe her as a “latte-sipper”, as if
that were really an epithet and not just a statement of
beverage-preference) discovers that death is coming for every boy she’s
had sex with - and not in an “STD sort of way”. This leads our
protagonist and her housemate on an ineffectual and undramatic quest to
discover the cause of this bizarre scenario, with a view to rectifying
it.
It’s basically like an adult Paul Jennings story, who himself could be
properly described as writing children’s versions of Neil Gaiman
stories. Unfortunately, this syllogism does not have the happy result
that Laid is of Gaiman-esque stature. The reason for this is that
it’s written by Marieke Hardy. It is instructive that every time someone
recommended that I watch Laid, the recommendation came with the
following disclaimer: “I don’t like Hardy either, but this isn’t bad for
something she’s written.”
For the blissfully unaware, Hardy is an Australian opinion piece writer
whose modus operandi consists of incessantly reminding the reader of two
things: firstly, that she is totally, like, “plugged-in” to the
zeitgeist (she tweets and everything, you know, and has a Facebook page,
el-oh-el), and secondly, that she’s irreverently progressive and
socially liberal, and as such is beholden to no taboos. Consequently,
her prose speaks from a yawning chasm of boredom which repeatedly and
self-consciously declares that the author has freed herself of
improperly restrictive social norms, and can prove it by dropping jokes
about vaginas and bisexuality into every other sentence.
Honestly, I find myself agreeing with those who recommended Laid
to me: it isn’t quite as bad as Hardy’s work usually is. Perhaps that’s
because there’s a narrative, unlike her opinion pieces, which simply
preach a particular perspective through confusing and obtuse attempts at
political witticisms. There are several times each episode where Hardy’s
trademark
“I’m-free-spirited-and-I-say-what-I-want-whether-or-not-you-look-at-me-but-seriously-look-at-me”
mannerisms come across, but ultimately that nonsense is much less
frequent than in her columns, and when it does happen, it’s much less
wearying. The first few episodes are quite light, easy television, with
a few laugh-out-loud moments, and many more occasions for restrained
smirks. Some of the actors succeed in bringing quirky characters to life
in a rather entertaining way.
Then the show pitches sharply right and tumbles off the rails at high
speed, as viewers discover that its premise is a pony competent at only
one trick. The “investigations” of Ruth and her housemate are
necessarily useless given the surreal nature of the problem, and are
therefore pointless and unrewarding to watch. When the contours and
suggested causes of the problem are explored, and solutions to it are
attempted, the show forgets how to be funny and throws itself
wholeheartedly into some utterly asinine dross that doesn’t even have
the benefit of a good spot of self-awareness. The last episode in
particular will have you questioning what exactly the show turned into,
and why you’re still watching.
And so, with great regret (but not much surprise) I report that Laid
joins the scrap-heap of Australian television labelled “almost”.
Ominously, the DVD cover bears the words “the complete first season”. If
the show does get renewed, there is certainly a chance that it could
lift itself off that scrap-heap and find a more respectable home. But I
wouldn’t be counting on it. |
