Critical Condition: Search Party

Search Party | Lightbox, from Tuesday

➢ “The 10-episode, half-hour series follows four members of the millennial generation who become infatuated with finding a missing woman … Shrewdly observant and emotionally honest, Search Party doesn’t sound like an uproarious comedy from the elevator pitch, but its writers strike a delicate balance between pleasure, lies, and truth while their characters seek the latter. The result is a series that calls out a generation’s easily misguided need for personal significance while honoring their inquisitive sensitivities.” — IndieWire.

➢ “It’s a mystery, more or less … But it’s also a comedy of millennial angst and entitlement, with a sleuthing team of four self-absorbed, 20-something Brooklyn types whose lineage runs from Seinfeld through Broad City. The show’s creators appear to have asked, ‘What would happen if we took a missing-person story and made the amateur detectives really obnoxious and clueless?’ It might sound like a difficult premise to stretch over five hours, but the result is surprisingly entertaining and even, here and there, moving.” — New York Times.

➢ “Is this TV’s next must-see, follow-the-clues puzzle box? Not quite. It’s something more curious, more challenging, and, for me, more fulfilling. Search Party is a tonally eclectic oddity — a mix of cultural satire, alt-comedy absurdity, and cliff-hanger mystery, and a hybrid of single-camera sitcom, binge serial, and maxi-series. It evokes a number of influences— postmodern detective stories, Gone Girl thrillers, and rom-coms about twentysomething sex and self-realisation in the big city.” — Entertainment Weekly.

➢ “Search Party opens up this insular world of dysfunctional 20-somethings to the story beats of any average procedural — pulling its neurotic New Yorkers and competitive high achievers into the ‘real world”’ stakes of life, death, and disposable identities. It’s sometimes horrifying and sometimes silly, and at times, Search Party can get a tiny bit precious with its own cleverness. But when it works, it’s an astounding and engaging journey through genre conventions that should be at odds with each other.” — Variety.

➢ “You probably won’t like the characters in TBS’ new mystery-comedy Search Party, but chances are good they wouldn’t think much of you either. Imagine Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura as a Brooklyn-set single-camera comedy and you may get a sense of how simultaneously off-putting and frequently ambitious Search Party is, as it weaves its twisty whodunnit around a funny portrait of generational disaffection.” — The Hollywood Reporter.