Though Disjointed feels like Chuck Lorre’s familiar CBS comedies in the beginning, the show refreshes itself for a Netflix audience with a little creativity and plenty of pot jokes.
Netflix’s newest comedy series, Disjointed, comes from CBS powerhouse producer, Chuck Lorre. Lorre is known for his work on Two and Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and CBS’s upcoming Young Sheldon. Though he’s long worked on network comedies, Disjointed is his first step into streaming television.
The series stars Kathy Bates as Ruth, the owner of a cannabis dispensary. Bates has most recently worked on Ryan Murphy’s dramatic projects Feud and American Horror Story. She’s no stranger to comedy, though, which she shows off in Disjointed.
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The show follows Ruth and her dispensary as they try to grow the business through an online presence. She is aided by her son, the dispensary’s security guard, and three budtenders. As Ruth, Bates has impeccable comedic timing and the charm to carry a cast of oddballs through both lighthearted and serious topics.
The first episode of Disjointed is largely predictable. It matches a CBS comedy beat for beat, including a disappointing jab at millennials. That’s not to say it isn’t funny. Even without the laugh track giving me clues, I found myself giving respectable chuckles to most of the jokes.
These kinds of comedies have always had their place, even if that’s traditionally been network TV and not Netflix. Many of Netflix’s prior ventures have been more edgy or more creatively diverse. With it cancelling shows like a network channel lately, though, an easy, predicable comedy would feel like a natural evolution for the site.
Thankfully, Disjointed breaks out of that formula after the first episode and grows into something that feels more at home on the internet. Netflix allows the show to take creative risks. It does things that are unexpected and fresh, wrapping the (still somewhat) predictable weed jokes in a layer of fun.
One of the creative risks that pays off again and again is the “Strain O’ the Day” reoccurring bit. Each episode shows an online commercial produced for the dispensary where the staffers show off a particular strain of cannabis. The strains get more and more ridiculous as the show goes on. It starts with a real strain of cannabis — Blue Dream — and by episode eight it becomes a joke about a single bud found in North Korea.
The theme song is another creative risk. The footage is pulled from a black and white movie, jazzy song included. It drags on a little too long and makes the first episode feel a little dated. After the first episode, the series cuts down the theme song, giving only a few bars, a few dance moves and ending with a modern logo.
This risk pays off, too, and the transition with the theme song fits the evolution of the show. It makes fun of its millennial audience in the first episode, but caters the rest of the series to them, fast forwarding the theme song so they don’t have to click the “skip” button on Netflix themselves.
The series also lets the audience closer to the characters in interesting ways. We get to see into their heads through the lens of cartoon renderings and some marijuana-induced apparitions, among other storytelling techniques. The apparitions might appear in a more traditional comedy, but the cartoon renderings show off the creative liberties allowed by a streaming site like Netflix.
In episode three, the show finds its groove and begins to balance humor with heart. As the dispensary’s security guard Carter struggles with his PTSD, Ruth and co. step up to help him. They take turns giving him advice and talking him through his struggles.
This kind of heart, along with the creative risks, make this show feel very at home on Netflix.