I wrote individual season reviews for each run of "Black Monday" but now that the show has been cancelled, I thought it's put something here to consider the series overall.
"Black Monday" offers a suggestion for the reasons behind the Wall Street Crash of 1987. It revolves around the office of Mo Munroe (Don Cheadle) as he attempts to win control of a historic company that makes Jeans but has a Manhattan warehouse which makes it valuable to asset strippers such as him. To assist with this, he engineers a meeting with Blair (Andrew Rannells), a new trader with an algorithm to sell, whose about to marry into the family that own the company.
"Black Monday" is a comedy series, but it's never quite sure what sort of comedy it is. At times broad, and others subtle. Occasionally it's all about the 80's, period jokes and excess, occasionally it's almost a drama, even a melodrama, with the lives and backstories of the characters. I can understand the people that enjoyed that aspect of it, but to me it made the series feel disjointed. Performances are generally pretty good though, but again, sometimes Cheadle and Regina Hall are in a different show to Paul Sheer and Andrew Rannells, as the latter two usually play much broader than the former.
Things are much more even in the second run, but they did it by bringing the rest of the show up to the broader level that they were doing. Maybe that sacrifices a bit of the performances that Cheadle and King brought to the first season, but it does make for a more even show. Whilst I don't think that it was hilariously funny thoughout the whole run, there were enough moments to make me feel positively about the whole endeavour.
Similar to the second season, the third shorn of the shows initial premise, is left with a bunch of characters continually finding excuses to remain in each other's gravitation. I do feel like this only works if you enjoy the characters and like spending time with them. The problem is that I'm not sure that's the case here, they're all pretty self-centred and constantly stabbing each other in the back. There's not, for me, even one character to really relate too.
Whilst the show is occasionally funny, it wasn't consistent enough to keep me from considering giving up a few times in the early episodes. To the shows credit, eventually the murder mystery storyline did enough to keep me watching.
I was happy to learn that was enough. I like all of the performers in this, and will follow them to other shows, but I do feel like we've seen enough from these particular characters.
"Black Monday" offers a suggestion for the reasons behind the Wall Street Crash of 1987. It revolves around the office of Mo Munroe (Don Cheadle) as he attempts to win control of a historic company that makes Jeans but has a Manhattan warehouse which makes it valuable to asset strippers such as him. To assist with this, he engineers a meeting with Blair (Andrew Rannells), a new trader with an algorithm to sell, whose about to marry into the family that own the company.
"Black Monday" is a comedy series, but it's never quite sure what sort of comedy it is. At times broad, and others subtle. Occasionally it's all about the 80's, period jokes and excess, occasionally it's almost a drama, even a melodrama, with the lives and backstories of the characters. I can understand the people that enjoyed that aspect of it, but to me it made the series feel disjointed. Performances are generally pretty good though, but again, sometimes Cheadle and Regina Hall are in a different show to Paul Sheer and Andrew Rannells, as the latter two usually play much broader than the former.
Things are much more even in the second run, but they did it by bringing the rest of the show up to the broader level that they were doing. Maybe that sacrifices a bit of the performances that Cheadle and King brought to the first season, but it does make for a more even show. Whilst I don't think that it was hilariously funny thoughout the whole run, there were enough moments to make me feel positively about the whole endeavour.
Similar to the second season, the third shorn of the shows initial premise, is left with a bunch of characters continually finding excuses to remain in each other's gravitation. I do feel like this only works if you enjoy the characters and like spending time with them. The problem is that I'm not sure that's the case here, they're all pretty self-centred and constantly stabbing each other in the back. There's not, for me, even one character to really relate too.
Whilst the show is occasionally funny, it wasn't consistent enough to keep me from considering giving up a few times in the early episodes. To the shows credit, eventually the murder mystery storyline did enough to keep me watching.
I was happy to learn that was enough. I like all of the performers in this, and will follow them to other shows, but I do feel like we've seen enough from these particular characters.