Flight of the Conchords

June 26th, 2007

My friend Margaret — who is about 15 years my senior — has noted on more than one occasion that our tastes are virtually identical, except when it comes to what she calls “age appropriate” material. I suspect that the new HBO series Flight of the Conchords, named after the New Zealand band it stars, falls into that category.

The show features the fictional adventures of the scraggly “digi-folk” duo –Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement — as they struggle to make a name for themselves in New York City. Flight of the Conchords is a real band…sort of. I mean, they do write and perform music, but it owes as much to comedy as it does to music. The pair formed FOTC in 1998 and have made a name for themselves on the international comedy circuit and did a BBC radio series a year or so ago. Their music is purely comedy satire but with spot-on send-ups of entire musical genres (and, in the show, their videos) from the past couple of decades. (Their “Inner City Pressure” is a brilliant homage to The Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls.”)

The storylines of the show — if they even qualify as such — are pretty thin, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if the show is hilarious or boring. It’s a finer line than you might think. It’s hard to imagine that you’d appreciate the musical numbers without a solid grasp on the ridiculous eighties-rock tunes that inspire many of them, but if you or your sense of humor are age 12-35, you might find this entertaining. But Margaret probably won’t.

The show airs Sunday nights on HBO, if you’ve got it. If not, you can watch clips here. (I also highly recommend watching “She’s So Hot, Boom.” Awesome!)

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