These days when Netflix comes out with a new series I don't tend to get really excited about most of them. Although they have kind of started to step away from it, there was a time when any new series seemed as though it was just another attempt on the part of Netflix to "educate" the public about social issues and I was really getting tired of that happening with anything they did. It wasn't a question of if they were going to do it, it was a question of how long they were going to wait before they did it.
Thankfully, it seems as though most of that has stopped on Netflix as they perhaps have come to the realization that they were losing customers because of this.
There have been a few good series that have come out in the past few years but nothing that was a comedy that really made me laugh out loud for real in my own living room. I had to pause this multiple times because I was laughing so much and couldn't catch all that was being said. Seriously, this show is that good!
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Cunk is a mockumentary that is done in the style of so many other genuine documentaries in that "Cunk" (played by Diane Morgan) and she travels all over the world (or as far as their budget and covid restrictions would allow - according to her) in order to showcase the various progressions that the human race has made throughout time. She narrates in a similar fashion to almost anyone else that has done one of these things including the famous David Attenborough.
She says completely ridiculous things about history and people and none of it is to be taken seriously because it is all meant in jest and most of it isn't true at all. It becomes extremely funny when she sits down with actual scholars and does unscripted interviews where she ad libs crazy questions to very smart people all the while maintaining a "stoneface" that never reveals that the entire thing is a piss take. She is so good at what she is doing that there are times where I kind of felt bad for the people she was interviewing who are kind to her, even though if serious, she is clearly an idiot.
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I'd like to believe that at the end of the interviews that Diane let down the façade and revealed to the guests that this was all a joke and that she isn't really that thick, and some images that exist of her and the guest smiling after the fact would indicate that this is exactly what happened.
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You might remember Diane Morgan from playing roles in Ricky Gervais' shows, the most recent of which was Afterlife and while she was great in that, I think that her true genius really shows in this series. The ability to stand somewhere with someone and have a serious interview where all of your questions are absurd and never break character, is a truly amazing quality to have as an actor or actress. I know that I couldn't pull this off and neither could most other people.
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They do travel all over the world for their establishing shots and this almost certainly cost quite a lot. It's kind of important that they do this because the movement from one style of shot to another keeps things fresh and mixes things up enough that you never have the chance to feel bored. Just don't take any of what is told to you in this fake documentary seriously because I would imagine that almost all of it, unless spoken by one of the academic guests, is almost certainly untrue.
Should I watch it?
That trailer doesn't do the show justice at all but I suppose there is only so much you can do with 30 seconds. As long as English is your first language I can all but guarantee that you are going to laugh a lot about this especially if you are like me and you used to like documentaries, but then Netflix and others went and did what they do to anything nice: Made too many of them and most of them were crap.
I can't recall a time in the past 5 years or so where I laughed as much as I did watching this series. I don't often do this but I watched all the episodes in one sitting and found myself yearning for more after they were all finished.
Mockumentaries are really very hit and miss with me but this one is one of the biggests "hits" that I have ever seen in my life. Seriously, go watch this. The episodes are less than 30 minutes each and there are only a few of them, so I bet that others will end up watching them all in sequence just like I did.
This is the highest recommendation I have given in 2023. I absolutely loved it.
