‘Astronomy Club’ Review (Netflix)
When I saw that there was a brand new sketch series on Netflix titled Astronomy Club I was very confused as this is not the title you would expect from this type of show… but I was pleasantly surprised.
Astronomy Club is a show perfectly made for binge-watching. Each episode is only around 20 minutes with multiple sketches appearing in one episode. If you wanted to it would only take you two hours to watch the entire of the first and only series – I really hope Netflix plans to make a second series as two hours in total for this show is nowhere near enough!
The comedy in this show is at times very light and at time extremely silly. For example, there is a sketch about a family of gingerbread people and their reaction to being eaten by a real-life family. However race is aalso a very important theme in this series as the sketches deal with stereotypes that black people still face today. One sketch that stands out on this regard is a scene where they discuss how black character is often portrayed as supporting characters in movies who provide wisdom to a concussed white character. While this sketch was hilarious funny it did also make me think about representation in movies and so it worked as a clever observation and critique of the outside world. As I already mentioned Astronomy Club is an unusual title for a sketch show but it was explained in a very hilarious and clever manner.
This is a super modern show which deals with issues and themes that affect everyone even today. In this show, there is the inclusion of a gay character that isn’t hilarious over the top stereotype but instead portrayed as a real person which can only benefit the LGBT community and any viewers which are obviously great to see. One of the highlight sketches in this show is towards the end of the series where Mary Poppins appears in a family home and in an attempt to ‘fit in’ with the family, she is looking after, she raps to some of her famous songs of the past which were perfectly and cleverly written but also hilariously funny.
The only problems I have with Astronomy Club is due to the sheer amount of small sketches there is a lot of transitions from sketch to sketch which became very tiresome very quickly. Also, there are random throwbacks to old episodes. These throwbacks are from scenes that weren’t partially memorable or iconic which was quite unusual in my opinion. I do however feel as if I missed something; I believe that the actors in this series have done some sort of show outside of Netflix which I have not seen, which might fill in some of the gaps I felt.
In general, this is an entertaining show that deals with many very important issues. It is a perfect way to fill a few hours and is at times very funny. I would would recommend Astronomy Club to anyone who is interested in comedy that has underlying social impact. I really hope Netflix decides to produce another series of his show as I think this first series was too short to leave a lasting impact on the viewer’s mind!
*** 3/5
Astronomy Club is available on Netflix now.
