SUMMER TV EXTRAVAGANZA

CAMP

*1/2 (out of ****)

What happened to the rule that said when something is perfectly satirized, it can never be unironically attempted again? Isn’t that a rule? Shouldn’t it be? More than a decade after Wet Hot American Summer put summer camp comedies to bed forever comes the less-cleverly-named Camp, starring Milk Carton Actor Rachel Griffiths. It’s genuineness is intolerable, particularly in the wake of WHAS. I shit you not, there is a rich camp that is across the river from the main camp, and the owner of the rich camp is going to buy the main camp if they don’t raise enough money to save themselves, and the rich camp is full of rich bullies that pick on the nerds of the main camp. All of this is done without the slightest bit of tongue in cheek, as if these are all original ideas we have never seen before. And that’s how Camp rolls, stringing together cliché after cliché, hoping not that we won’t notice, but we just won’t mind. It’s summer, and it’s hot, and why wouldn’t we put up with this garbage? It’s actually a pretty smart idea for a show: a permanent summer fill in that can run throughout the season, almost in real time, cycling out actors as they get too old/too famous. Too bad it was botched in every single way.

-Ryan Haley