Summary
DMV boasts all the familiar cliches of a workplace sitcom in its pilot episode, but it’s undeniably funny and has a great cast to compensate.
DMV seems built on the question of what a single-camera workplace sitcom looks like when everyone hates the workplace. And I don’t just mean the cast, either; that comes as standard in a show like this. I really do mean everyone. The pains of queuing at the DMV are legendary, universally understood, and almost scientifically designed to create apathy towards the minimum-wage employees who staff the place. Episode 1 introduces those employees and expects you to empathise with them. Is it possible?
Well, yeah. It helps that DMV depicts customers as either grossly unreasonable or utterly incompetent, so there’s no ambiguity – after all, it wouldn’t be very funny for someone to have a justified complaint upheld. There’s a cartoon angry upper-middle-class guy who shows up multiple times throughout the pilot getting annoyed that he can’t use an expired passport as ID or a coupon as a proof of residence, and accuses the new-ish employee behind the counter, Noa, of “hating guys like him”. He doesn’t explain what that means, but it’s implied.
And it isn’t just the public who’re hostile. The East Hollywood DMV office, where the show is set, is being assessed by consultants to determine if it’ll be one of the four Hollywood branches that are shut down and turned fully automated (how modern). It’s a familiar sitcom gimmick, granted, but it ties in with the show’s underlying themes of a put-upon workforce not being valued and respected by anyone, even the government, for whom their function is pretty essential.
That workforce mainly comprises Colette, a single thirty-something driving examiner who considered a job at the DMV “only temporary” five years ago; Gregg, a former English teacher played by Tim Meadows, continuing his run of brilliant comedic form from this season of Peacemaker; Vic, a former bouncer who mostly just uses his job to bully the drivers; and Barbara, the newly promoted boss whose first day on her new job is spent trying to save the entire office – and faring pretty badly at it.
There’s also Noa, the obligatory audience POV character who is significantly less eccentric than everyone else but handsome enough to have attracted the attention of “Hot Kristen” and, indeed, Colette. Spurred on by Vic and Gregg, she tries to make various romantic overtures in his direction that all end pretty badly, inadvertently giving away that she has been scoping out his Instagram and thoroughly embarrassing herself by revealing she has a menstrual pad stuck to her skirt.
When Colette decides that’s enough humiliation for one day, she tries to escape out of the bathroom window and ends up stuck, topless, possibly in need of a tetanus shot, and a source of amusement for literally the entire office, including Noa, who at least has the decency to scoot around the building and help her down. It’s a bit like HBO’s The Chair Company, only the crippling embarrassment is something Colette is going to have to live with, and there’s no conspiracy to explain how she got there.
And by the end of DMV Episode 1, Noa does seem a little bit romantically interested in Colette. There’s plenty of time for her to ruin it, though, especially in the eyes of the consultants, who reveal that they intend to be in the office for the entire year. Yikes. The familiarity of the premiere notwithstanding, there’s clearly enough meat on the bones – and a game enough cast – to make it work for the long haul.
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