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Kevin Can F–k Himself is a weird one because with a title like this, I can’t use the full word because not only will some people find it offensive, but the likes of Google will block searches for it because of profanity, so that’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) out of the window.
That said, the F-word is officially truncated to “F**k”, and a website URL can’t include asterisks within it, so that also knackers the SEO for this. And then, when the title appears early on, the full word is shown, but one letter at a time, while the rest of the title is onscreen the whole time. Either way, I’ve replaced the asterisks with dashes, which are a tad more SEO-friendly.
But, let’s see how the programme, itself, goes.
One of the early jokes is about how neighbour Neil’s (Alex Bonifer) sister, Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden), moans that she had to change his nappies when he was a baby. The problem? He was three years OLDER than her. Laugh? I nearly asked Netflix for a second season of Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! However, even if I was going to laugh, I would’ve been drowned out by the canned laughter.
We see Kevin (Eric Petersen) is playing Beer Pong with Neil, and that he’s married to Allison (Annie Murphy) and claims to be 35, like his wife. Okay, so Ms Murphy IS 35, but strangely, I can’t find Eric’s actual age online. I’m guessing at least 10 years older.
Kevin Can F–k Himself is the kind of thing you’d expect to run for 22 minutes plus adverts (or just 22 minutes on a service with no adverts), but each episode is 44 minutes.
But then after the canned laughter scene, Allison goes into the kitchen for a rather darker scene with a tinge of drama, and it’s like she’s in a different world entirely. But then this is billed as “A look at the secret life of a sitcom wife”.
As it goes on, Allison’s life is appearing to spin out of control, and it cuts back and forth between these two types of scenes: when together, it’s ‘canned laughter time’, but when she’s on her own, it’s a normal drama.
So, we have rather a dichotomy in the way this series behaves, but while I can see it’s trying to do something different, the sitcom-like scenes are annoying, and the Allison-only drama scenes just aren’t particularly interesting. In fact, this change also happens when, for example, there’s a group scene in the lounge, but Kevin leaves the room temporarily, causing the decor to change to something that looks as if they’re going to party like it’s 1899.
It’s therefore a difficult show to mark an episode out of ten because I just don’t really get it. If you do, please let me know in the comments below.
Kevin Can F–k Himself streams from tomorrow on Amazon Prime, but is not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
Episode 1 Score: I don’t get it.
Directors: Anna Dokoza, Oz Rodriguez
Producers: Cami Delavigne, Shana Fischer Huber, Anna Dokoza
Creator: Valerie Armstrong
Writers: Shukri Abdi, Valerie Armstrong, Lindy Jamil Gomez, Mel Shimkovitz, Craig DiGregorio, Sean Clements, Kevin Etten, Dana Ledoux Miller, Kate Loveless, Tom Scharpling, Noelle Valdivia
Music: Keegan DeWitt
Cast:
Allison McRoberts: Annie Murphy
Kevin McRoberts: Eric Petersen
Patty O’Connor: Mary Hollis Inboden
Neil O’Connor: Alex Bonifer
Pete McRoberts: Brian Howe
Sam: Raymond Lee
Detective Tammy Ridgeway: Candice Coke
Nick Wyndorff: Robin Lord Taylor
Jenn: Meghan Leathers
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.