Let me start off this review by saying that ‘The League’ is not for kids under … 30. Every off-color and sex-related joke you can think of is in this show. Ok, now that I’ve got that out of the way…
I don’t watch football, I don’t play fantasy football (I barely know what it is), and I don’t know any of the players. And yet, ‘The League’ is seriously funny – in a raunchy, ridiculous and risque way. I’m actually ashamed to tell you I watch it, but there it is.
‘The League’ is one of those shows you watch at 3 a.m. — to make sure 1) no kids are awake, and 2) someone doesn’t come to the door and accidentally see you watching it. It’s also one of those shows you’d write if you wanted to lose your inhibitions and write every offensive and inappropriate thing you could never write elsewhere. Or wait, is that ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia?’ No, I think it’s ‘The League.’ Ok, both.
Anyway, ‘The League’ follows a group of guys in a fantasy football league, and everything revolves around that. But the stories sort of span out from there – things like a kid having “fun with feces,” a wife’s confidence in her vagina being the talk of the message boards, and the guys taking a trip to Chinatown to look for Three Penis Wine. Yeah, you can see what I was talking about earlier.
It airs on Thurs. at 10:30PM ET on FX, so they can get away with things not allowed on network TV (though it’s always interesting to me that FX isn’t a premium channel like HBO or Showtime, and yet they air adult-oriented shows).
The cast includes Mark Duplass, Nick Kroll, Stephen Rannazzisi, Paul Scheer, Jonathan Lajoie, Nadine Velazquez, Alina Foley and Katie Aselton. Everyone works really well together, and it’s “semi-scripted,” so I imagine there’s lots of ad-lib going on.
Season two premiered Sept. 16, and season one is available on DVD and Blu-ray.
Image: Amazon.com
