Following the life of a group of comedians, who during the 1970s do their best, trying to make their names shine in the world of fame and wealth, facing all the obstacles..
You might think that a show about stand-up comedians would, you know, make you laugh a time or two. But ... morose, cliché-riddled new drama I'm Dying Up Here ... is more likely to make you hate yourself, everyone around you and humanity in general.
Too little of it feels lived-in or genuine. And that's a fatal flaw that extends to the overwritten scripts as well. For a show about being authentic, I'm Dying Up Here too often comes off as remarkably fake.
I'm Dying Up Here has a great, highly recommended first hour. After that, it has moments of fun and insight, but a lot of sourness that isn't funny at all. You had to be there.
Making a drama about comedy can't be easy, but the strain is so evident in I'm Dying Up Here, a preachy period piece executive produced by Jim Carrey about desperate stand-ups in 1970s L.A., that it begins to resemble flop sweat.
The chatty, chummy passages of I'm Dying Up Here sit uneasily with the sudden left turns into scenes about addiction, racism, sexual violence, and PTSD, which clumsily romanticize the notion that all humor springs from pain.
Considered for what it really is-a sharply observed soap opera about a wholly debauched and dysfunctional group of friends preying upon their mutual insecurities-I'm Dying Up Here offers considerable viewing pleasure.
I found myself returning to I'm Dying Up Here for a simple reason: It's a good hang. The show captures the peculiar tense camaraderie and striving oneupmanship of young comedians.
For as much as it wants to parallel the present with candid stories on sexism, racism, and more material covered by the era's edgiest comics, I'm Dying Up Here still feels stuck in the past.
