Summary
There isn’t much to it, but that’s fine. Bert Kreischer and friends make for funny, infectiously laidback lockdown viewing.
Bert Kreischer has a rare and potent superpower among comedians – his laugh is funny. That’s all he needs, really. There has always been confusion about how much of his material is a bit and how much is him just happily recounting weird stuff he’s done without any real embellishment whatsoever, and The Cabin with Bert Kreischer, a new, exceptionally laidback five-part series on Netflix in which he and his friends goof around in a Malibu mountain cabin, seems designed to play up that idea. Shot pre-pandemic in January, it’s a show entirely about goofing around with fun people. We could use more stuff just like it.
Anyone even passingly familiar with Kreischer and his social circle will be right at home here Familiar faces like Joey Diaz and Tom Segura pop up more or less straight away, right after a montage and narration establishing Kreischer’s party animal bonafides. He’s out at the cabin ostensibly for a period of contemplation and enlightenment that’ll stop that lifestyle catching up with him now he’s into his 40s. But no such luck. It’s an excuse to mess around, as it should be.
READ: Bert Kreischer: Razzle Dazzle review
All Kreischer’s recuperative activities – spiritual crystal healing and such – are intended to fix his various physical and psychological ills, but they’re mostly just an excuse for improvised gags and silliness. The celebrity cameos work the same way. Segura and Diaz are at least Kreischer’s friends – some of the rest have clearly been selected because they’re easy to make fun of. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, either. The list of comedians includes Nikki Glaser, Fortune Feimster, Donnell Rawlings, Bobby Lee, Big Jay Oakerson and others. Some names, like Caitlyn Jenner and Kaley Cuoco, can’t be described as comedians but are all in agreement that what they end up doing probably isn’t what they signed up for. This is, again, probably for the best.
Kreischer’s attitude and sense of humour are infectious. The show burns both for fuel. The atmosphere is quietly confident, though, since everyone involved knows this is going to be funny by its very nature – when you put funny people in these kinds of situations, that’s what happens. How much healing is going on is anyone’s guess, but if I was in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, this is probably the way I’d want to go about it.
