Fred Armisen's Documentary Now starring Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and Helen Mirren is back in its next season. This narrates the current worship with documentaries. Season two consists six distinctive stories and stylistic approaches paying homage to the doc format.
Documentary Now! continues to surprise and entertain from week to week with such varied episodes, with some leaning toward slapstick and others more subdued.
The replication of a low-budget, earnestly progressive public TV broadcast is impeccable, abetted by Helen Mirren's hilariously solemn introductions of the films.
One of TV's best comedies, Documentary Now! is also one of its strongest homages to classic documentary films. The first one tackled for the second season is the suitably political "The Bunker."
[It] not only succeeds in pulling off the documentary parody that it's going for, but also in just being downright funny and another good showcase of Hader and Armisen.
Documentary Now makes a solid case that it could very well be a comedy series that fits that bill, but the series' ambitions remain just a bit too hit-and-miss to fully realize that promise.
It's comedy absent a neon sign and an obvious "here it comes" moment. It's laughter when you least expect it and it lingers because of that artfully constructed set-up.
The show's stars, Fred Armisen and Bill Hader, elevate every episode with their performances, but it's a comedy that wrings laughs mostly with its rigorous attention to detail.
