Presumably this lame sitcom is Netflix's revenge against Blockbuster

Netflix is pretty good at some stuff. Headline-grabbing, mega-budget drama, for example, some of which might upset the Royal Family. Or interminable true-crime documentaries. Or trashy dating shows with shiny-haired, orange-faced participants who look like they came off a factory production line. But amid all its endless “content”, has the streaming giant ever made a great sitcom?

I’d suggest not. Sex Education and Russian Doll are comedy-dramas. Ricky Gervais’ After Life arguably isn’t funny. Emily in Paris definitely isn’t. Can Netflix break its comedy curse with latest offering, Blockbuster? I’m afraid it can’t.

The setting is the last Blockbuster Video store in America – about which Netflix already made a documentary, 2020’s Ronseal-titled The Last Blockbuster. As this 10-parter begins, manager Timmy Yoon (Randall Park) learns that the struggling chain is closing its other remaining branches, leaving his Michigan outlet as the sole survivor.

Timmy realises that the only way to stay afloat in the streaming age is to remind the local community that small businesses provide something the digital corporations can’t: personal service and human connection. Employees include his long-time unrequited crush, Harvard dropout Eliza (Melissa Fumero). So can he somehow save everyone’s jobs and get the girl?

It’s a decent enough premise, if a smugly self-referential one. On paper, Blockbuster should work. It’s created by Vanessa Ramos, a writer for Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the underrated Superstore. Leading man Park is an alumnus of Veep and The US Office, while Fumero found fame in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. JB Smoove, who plays Timmy’s best buddy, was a scene-stealer in Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Blockbuster has potential to be a feelgood workplace comedy with a warm, nostalgic glow. Sadly, you can’t create alchemy via a Netflix algorithm. Its elements don’t add up and the result is frustratingly flimsy. The romantic subplot goes around in tedious circles as Timmy and Eliza constantly miscommunicate. They end virtually every episode by apologising to one another, then looking wistful as they part.

Likeable as he is, Yoon is a weakness. I suspect he’s better as a supporting actor than the marquee star. It makes sense for Timmy to be a film buff but add in the facts that he’s worked in the same shop for decades, is a middle-aged man still living in a flatshare, chronically unlucky in love, bullied by his parents and such a people-pleaser that he can’t make decisions, and he becomes insufferably wet and whiny.

His bloated workforce spend all day standing around in an empty shop, trading zingers. No wonder the business on the skids. The over-written dialogue is laden with so many nerdy pop-culture in-jokes that it clanks and groans under their weight. UK audiences might also struggle with the constant references to US TV. Dateline NBC, The Real World, Veronica Mars, Nash Bridges, 21 Jump Street and Smallville make for pretty niche humour.

It’s bold of Netflix to commission a comedy that depicts itself – along with Amazon, Apple and the rest – as the bad guys. Perhaps it’s gloating that it helped drive Blockbuster into the ground. Or petty payback for when Blockbuster was still a going concern and, ironically, it declined to buy out a fledgling online DVD-rental firm called Netflix. Revenge might be satisfying. It just isn’t funny.