Texting with Gosling

The Weekly Binge: 3 Web Series to Watch this Week

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What if you had the man of your dreams fall into your lap? Would you instinctively know what to do? Or would you screw it up because you’re a bad person with bad instincts and don’t deserve happiness? Probably the latter if history is any indication but you would hope to fail with verve, attitude, and a gang of friends who embrace your mission (wooing Ryan Gosling via text) as if it’s their own. The show is a clever deconstruction of modern dating and communication, detailing our desperation to appear aloof and how technology has bastardized language. But the real life of the show is the group of friends, who have the sort of repartee and fun dynamic that makes you think of Workaholics or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Watching them hatch any plan would make for an engaging series.

A teen is charged with saving a small town from an invasion of evil spirits. Sound familiar? But what if that teen is more of a snarky emo scribble-in-her-notebook type at her Clerks-style comic book store job than a vigorous blonde who karate chops villains in their face? And what if you add a little Twin Peaks smalltown intrigue and ominous musical cues? You get this exceptionally weird soap opera that’s disarming in its self-awareness about a woman on the verge of turning 30 who is equally haunted by her dead-end life and an incorporeal demon.

The liner notes for this show describe it as “a sci-fi animated series about an asshole middle-aged woman traveling the galaxy in a very distant future.” Which, though true, doesn’t really help set up expectations at all. For one, the show is entirely without dialogue. For another, the first (and only, so far) episode doesn’t exactly involve just casual tourism. Glenda comes across a portal that transforms her into a giant who looms over a futuristic city. First, she toys with her newfound powers, then she terrorizes the city, then she retreats. There’s something incredibly compelling about her journey of discovery, like watching a toddler learn to walk, that’s lightened by the visual sight gags as Glenda acts like a buffoon.