2x01 'A Good Opportunity'

hellomyfriend wrote:

drunkagain wrote:Have we seen this one before?
Oh well, it's such a beautiful shot that I'm sure no one will mind seeing it again.

Now I just need it HUGE.

[size=133:y1eken5r]Flight Of The Conchords season 2 episode 1 review
Glen Chapman
[size=100:y1eken5r]Finally! Flight of the Conchords' second season arrives in the UK, and here's what we thought of episode one...
Published on May 13, 2009


[size=100:y1eken5r]For those who don't know, Flight Of The Conchords follows Jemaine and Brett, two friends from New Zealand living in a one-bedroom apartment in New York, trying to make it as a successful band. Despite being armed with a back catalogue of genre-spanning pop numbers (hip-hop, Prince-esque funk, you name it, it's likely they've tried it), they find it difficult to get any decent gigs. With a loyal fan base of one, Kristen Schaal's Mel, and an incompetent manager, Rhy Darby's Murray, things aren't exactly going the way the guys want.

The first episode of season 2, A Good Opportunity, now finds Murray as a successful manager of The Crazy Doggs. So successful, in fact, that he has little time for Brett and Jemaine.

The episode opens with a familiar set up, a band meeting, but an unfamiliar setting, Murray's swanky, and slightly ostentatious, new office. Throughout the meeting Murray continuously refers to Crazy Doggs business, stopping briefly to tell the boys to return a cushion they stole from a library, mistaking their business for his longer serving, less successful, client's. After all, gold records and a collaboration with R. Kelly aren't something that you'd associate with the Conchords. Irked at Murray's lack of focus the boys fire him with exchanges of "
Stuff you!"


The firing leads to the first musical number of the new series, Rejected sung by Murray. Leggy Blonde this aint. This song, describing Murray's feelings following his sacking, builds from a delicate start through to an operatic number that features a string section and fades back to the manner in which the song started and certainly isn't of the quality that was seen in the previous series.

Following their sacking of Murray, the boys head out on their own and book their own gig. They pull a much larger crowd than what they're used to and draw the attentions of two advertising agency executives (played by Greg Proops and Andrea Rosen) who want the boys to write an advertising jingle for a brand of toothpaste that's specifically for females. Initially conflicted if this makes them sell-outs, the boys take the gig anyway and get cracking with writing the jingle. Their early attempts at tackling the jingle, and the conversation between Brett and Jemaine that follows this, is easily the highlight of the episode.

Struggling to write the jingle and feeling a little overwhelmed with the prospect of negotiating with executives, the boys seek advice from Arj Barker's Dave. He bestows invaluable advice on women and negotiation skills, which leaves Brett out of pocket, having overpaid for a pen.

With the boys now finding success without Murray's assistance, Murray finds himself in hot water when it's discovered that the Crazy Doggs had plagiarised their big hit, Doggy Bounce, from a Polish band. Lawyers from the band clean Murray out and he's forced to live in his car, which he periodically has to move a few feet due to parking restrictions.

With Murray now down and out, things are looking good for the guys as they begin to film the advert for 'Femident'. The advert sees them perform a shortened version of their initial treatment - apparently 18 minutes is too long for an advert - in tights the color of toothpaste whilst emerging out of giant toothpaste tubes.

After recording the advert, the executives are eager to see the boys work permits so that they can pay them for a job well done. Not having a clue what the executives are on about, it turns out that the boys are illegal immigrants and facing legal prosecution. In desperation they return to Murray and convince him to return to the consulate so that he can get their passports and save them from prosecution.

Murray appears at the commercial set and convinces the boys to rehire him before he helps them. Once they agree he reveals that their passports have yet to be processed and suggests they make a run for it. They escape in Murray's car and he comments that someone must be looking out for them, which leads to another weak musical number, Angels, which closes the episode.

The start of season 2 sees many changes;
these are noticeable immediately in the title sequence - whilst the theme tune is still the same, the visuals are much more polished than that of the first series. Signs of the increase in budget also carries through to the show itself. Things seem much more polished this time round, which at this stage is difficult to determine if it improves the show or detracts from the lo-fi charm that helped make the first series so great.

The overall feel of the show is a little flat and uninspired. There are plenty of laughs throughout but there have been better, much better, episodes than this. I'd go as far to say that this is the weakest Conchords episode yet. I'm hoping that the polished nature of the show was there, purely, to reflect Murray's new lifestyle and this will give way to the methods adopted in the first series, to help the show achieve the feel that made it so appealing in the first place.

This is the weakest episode of Flight Of The Conchords I have seen, however, there are flashes that indicate there's hope for the rest of the season. Nice touches like the returning of the cushion to the library and the doll shaped hole in the back of Jemaine's jacket when he's commenting on how Brett got the same clothes for the dolls that he's looking to sell as merchandise.

Here's hoping next week sees a return to form.....

[size=133:hcrxu9vn]Last Night's Television - Flight of the Conchords ...
Reviewed by Tom Sutcliffe
Wednesday, 13 May 2009


[size=100:hcrxu9vn]I feel I've paid my dues with Flight of the Conchords, first getting attached to them when they did a series on Radio 2. Back then, the notion that "
New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a cappella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo"
might make it big in America would only have registered as one of their hapless manager's fantasies. Rob Brydon was doing the documentary voiceover and Murray (the hapless manager) was regularly phoning Neil Finn of Crowded House for career advice. Something went right, though, because HBO's first series about about two naive musicians trying to scrape a living in New York went well enough for a second series, delayed only by the fact that the group had used up virtually all their musical material in series one and had to start again from scratch.

We began, fittingly and reassuringly, with a band meeting, Bret and Jemaine responding to Murray's roll-call in an unexpectedly plush penthouse office. This, it soon becomes clear, is the result of Murray's association with a novelty hit-machine called the Crazy Doggz, whose gold discs line the wall. Worried that such managerial energies as he possesses are being monopolised by his new band Bret and Jemaine sack him, at which point Murray spitefully reveals that the two Flying Conchord's Grammy's on his office shelf are actually just pencil-sharpeners with fake labels. "
I thought we won Best New Zealand artist,"
said an aggrieved Jemaine. "
There's no such category,"
replied Murray scathingly. The in-joke for devotees being that along with being named Wellingtonians of the Year in 2007, the Conchords can also rank a Grammy for Best Comedy Album among their genuine awards.

If you'd come back for the songs you might have felt a little short-changed, with one pastiche Broadway lament for Murray, a short toothpaste jingle, and a song called "
Angels"
, which had no very obvious connection to the plot. If you'd come back for the comedy, though, things were just fine, the humour still wonderfully underplayed, so that the laugh often comes a beat and a half after the punchline.

"
This could make you so rich you'll be shiiting money,"
said Greg Proops's adman, offering them a jingle for an organic women's toothpaste. "
Literally, if you want,"
added his earnest female counterpart. Jemaine feels he's well qualified for this gig. "
My father's a women's-rights activist."
"
Your dad? Not your mum?"
said Bret. "
My mum! No! My dad wouldn't allow that."
Happily for us, if not for Murray, it turns out that Crazy Doggz's biggest hit is identical to a "
cover version"
, which just happens to have been recorded several years earlier, so by the end, he's returned to his job at the New Zealand consulate, where nobody had quite got round to reading his boat-burning letter of resignation. I had a broad happy smile on my face as the final credits rolled. ...

[size=100:ohyecx0b]Flight Of The Conchords takes off
By KEITH WATSON - Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Flight Of The Conchords is still as charming as ever New Zealand duo Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement had a decade's worth of songs to pour into the first series of Flight Of The Conchords (BBC4).

So it was small wonder that it played as a comedy concert with the offbeat gags, built around the wide-eyed misadventures of Kiwi folkies on the loose in New York, little more than padding between stellar parodies of everyone from Prince to Bowie.

So, with their back catalogue played out, is the Conchords magic still there in their difficult second series?

Curiously, though the songs took a back seat (parodies don't work if you can't tell whose leg is being pulled), the comedy riffing of Bret, Jemaine and unsung hero Murray the Manager, just about kept this charming show on the road.

It's credit to the appeal of the innocents-abroad characters that the duo have created that even when they're handling pretty thin material, they still prove engaging personalities.

And building Murray's part up is a smart move, because Rhys Darby is right on the money as the world's most hopeless band manager.

Last night's band meeting featured Murray informing the guys: 'R Kelly wants to sing on your next song.' 'Really?' says an excited Jemaine. 'Should I find out who he is?' offers Murray. Somehow, in an NZ accent, it was really funny.

[size=133:41tn1yss]Flight of the Conchords, BBC4 ..
Bret and Jemaine's second series gets off to a wobbly start.
Reviewed by Mike Higgins
Sunday, 17 May 2009


[size=100:41tn1yss]Is there a word to describe the sinking feeling when you log on to BBC's iPlayer and discover that, actually, you can't watch again. Vast tranches of BBC Parliament are available of course, but The Wire or, indeed, Flight of The Conchords? Not a trace. Something to do with "
rights"
, or "
licensing"
, or "
MPs' expenses"
, no doubt. Whatever the reason, it's annoying that much-touted, imported TV programmes slip through the iPlayer's digital net.

Which is how I came to be watching Flight of the Conchords on YouTube, (thank you, FunJammer1978). This is the first episode of the "
cult"
show's second series, and if you're like most who caught the first, you'll either be putting the finishing touches to your live tribute act to its stars Bret and Jemaine, and their attempts to make it in New York as "
formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a cappella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo"
, or you're scratching your head in disbelief that anyone finds this pap amusing. For a mild, modest sitcom that gently sends up musicals and pop promos, it seems to provoke quite extreme reactions. (Me, I'm a fan.)

Not much has changed. Bret and Jemaine are still very dim, distinguishable by the vague sense that Bret is a little ditzier than Jemaine. The tone continues to hover a few notches beneath deadpan. And the plot, again, does the bare minimum to set up the songs with which the Flight of The Conchords made their name on the comedy circuit (if you fancy a Conchords' YouTube moment, have a look at their song "
Motha'uckas"
from series one, possibly the greatest gangsta rap video ever shot on bicycles).

So, in this episode, the boys sack their manager Murray (Rhys Darby), are gulled into writing a song for an organic toothpaste for women and, when that goes wrong, re-employ Murray. Cue a lament from Murray, the "
Femident"
jingle and ... not many laughs. Perhaps Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement weren't kidding when they recently hinted that they'd run out of funny songs. Ah well. It's only episode one, there was a nice line about women's rights, and their Kiwi accents still make me smile ("
Yiss!"
). Anyway, you should never judge an album by its first track. ...