The popular YouTube series Minimum Wage has been remade for Netflix, but its low-budget aesthetic is still there, as is its young cast. But it adds a proven comedy star in Randall Park and gives us slightly longer episodes. Is it worth your time?
MINIMUM WAGE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: As a camera crew sets up, we see a teenager in a pizza suit frantically try to deliver a pizza in less than 10 minutes, or it’s free. He ends up driving into a lake because he can’t steer well with the costume on.
The Gist: The Slice Club is a pizzeria run by a group of minimum-wage-earning teens that truly give very few effs about their job. Grace (Grace Reiter), the manager, tries a little bit, but the rest — Aidan (Aidan Micho), Hyde (Hyde Healy), Julia (Julia DiCesare), Luke (Luke Burke), Ryan (Ryan Micho), and Tommy (Tommy Armstrong) — are too busy doing things like testing how long they can stay in the walk-in fridge or putting pepperoni on their nipples to do simple things like swap out the display pizzas once a day. Luckily, the place also gets very few customers.
A limo pulls up and out comes a man in a tie who stalks around without announcing who he is. Turns out he’s the owner of the franchise, Mr. Sylvester (Randall Park), and he’s there to figure out whether the unprofitable store should stay open or be sold. But he has his own issues; he’s going through a divorce and the failing pizza shop and the limo are his only worldly possessions, which is why the group sees him on the security cameras moving into the basement that night.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Minimum Wage is based on a popular YouTube series produced by American High. In a lot of ways, it reminds us of a cross between The Office and It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
Our Take: There is no particular explanation about why a documentary film crew is filming this particular set of teens in this particularly struggling pizzeria. It really feels like an excuse to use the mockumentary format, because the confessional interviews that are a trope of that genre are a good shortcut to big laughs, as all the writing staff and showrunners Jeremy Garelick and Will Phelps have to do is make the interview and what’s actually happening contrast for an easy gag. Looking at the camera as things are going on is also another shortcut.
The cast is pretty much unknown if you didn’t watch the YouTube series. Park serves the same function that Danny DeVito served on Always Sunny all those years ago: A known veteran who can attract eyeballs and play the nominal “adult in the room.” But even in episodes where we barely see him, the cast is comfortable enough with each other to coalesce around a situation and make the outlandish behavior of the Slice Club’s crew at least amusing most of the time.
Performance Worth Watching: Grace Reiter, having just been added to the cast of SNL, is probably the best known of the group playing the teens. But she also has the tough task of playing the most centered of those characters, and the only one who cares at least a little bit. We also like Julia DiCesare as the naive homeschooled teen Julia.
Sex And Skin: There’s a reason why one of the crew likes to spend time in the walk-in fridge, as we find out in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Mr. Sylvester moves into the basement, and one of the gang needs to get some incriminating stuff out of that room.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Minimum Wage is a show that will elicit a few good laughs and features a cast that’s fun to watch. Is it gut-grabbing hilarious? No. Do the characters distinguish themselves beyond the funny things they do? Not for the most part. But each episode is a pleasant way to pass 12-15 minutes, and that might be enough.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.