Ex-Saturday Night Live star Julio Torres’s oustandingly whimsical new series threatens to tear up television’s rules – and is packed with guest stars including Emma Stone and Steve Buscemi
I adored Fantasmas and can say with a similar level of confidence that it will absolutely not be for everyone. A good test might be to consider your tolerance for anthropomorphic robots, toys and animals. If the existence of an emotional, soap-esque storyline about a queer nightclub for hamsters and the impact of gentrification sounds as if it might be a touch too whimsical, then this comedy may be worth a swerve. But even then, I would suggest pushing through, because Fantasmas is a fantastically creative and theatrical little diamond – and more pensive than an initial sense of gimmick-reliance might suggest.
It comes from the incomparable brain of comedian Julio Torres, former Saturday Night Live writer and creator of the vastly underrated two-season wonder Los Espookys. Here, he has conjured up another series that constructs its own bright world and messily splashes around in it. It presents itself as a narrative series, but really, it is more of a sketch show, with a series of mini film-like interludes bound together by the loosest of threads. These mini films are outstanding; the idea of weaving them all together with a semi-connected quest works fine, but requires more of an effort to sustain.
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