Talk shows: They’re not just to fill out the afternoon hours on daytime television anymore.
The first episode of Plaid Forever premiered on Tumblr and YouTube Monday. Hosted by two bros, Michael and Andrew, the pair dash around New York City in their plaid-laden outfits talking to creative types and filming it all on their iPhones.
Why plaid? The guys have a “mutual love” for the checkered pattern, as explained in their teaser video.
The show is unscripted. There will be swearing, they promise.
The first episode featured a behind-the-scenes look at their music video, “Plaid Rap”, by interviewing the video’s producer and lead actor. At three minutes, the episode moved briskly enough. But our interest waned as the compliment-laden brofest waxed.
While filming with iPhones didn’t hamper the video quality, seeing the guys’ arms awkwardly holding the makeshift cameras was just distracting after the first minute. You know you have a problem when the biggest dramatic tension is wondering when the filmmakers’ elbows will give out and spare us.
The Plaid Rap music video itself was a heavily Auto-Tuned lesson in why people who are not actual rappers should just not make rap videos. We couldn’t tell if they were sincerely praising the wearing of plaid or mocking themselves. But how postironic can you be when you’re satirically unraveling the very fabric of your Web series?
If you want to kill three minutes, there are worse things to watch (like a LMFAO music video). But we hope it won’t take Plaid Forever its eponymous time period to figure out its purpose in the crowded world of Internet video shows.