TV Review: Corporate (Seasons 1-3)

Matt Engelbertson and Jake Levinson are junior executives working at corporate mega-behemoth Hampton DeVille. Their preference is to take things easy and enjoy their paycheques; unfortunately, their bosses Kate and John discover they can use Matt and Jake as their dogsbodies for whatever crazed money-making idea they are entertaining, to impress their bosses. HR representative Grace is decidedly unhelpful. Meanwhile, CEO Christian DeVille is trying to guide his corporation through perilous waters as he pivots from weapons manufacturing to getting in on the TV streaming wars.

Corporate is a now-complete comedy series that ran for three seasons and 26 episodes on Comedy Central from 2018 to 2020. The idea of a show mocking American work culture is not particularly new, with the likes of The Office lampooning the lives of many people working in middle-end jobs. Corporate takes a different approach by going inside the skyscraper headquarters of a particularly morally dubious corporate super-entity, and also going in for tonal bleakness. A lot.

In fact, when Matt once again opens an episode of Corporate musing on the existential soullessness of a life spent behind a computer screen tapping buttons, you might be wondering where the jokes are coming from. Isn't this just a statement of life? But the show quickly escalates its musings on humdrum boardroom meetings and corporate buzzspeak to a more insane level, mainly thanks to the characters coming to the notice of their supreme leader, Christian.

Christian is only in 18 of the episodes, but he is played by the late, fantastic Lance Reddick. Reddick often plays law enforcement or military roles, and comedy is not one of his regular fortes. But in Corporate he is allowed to absolutely cut loose and he clearly relishes every second of it. Scenes where he begs on his hands and knees for a fellow corporate boss to licence him the rights to an older sitcom to bolster his flagging new streaming service, or castigates his executives for instituting "casual Fridays" without his knowledge, meaning he unexpectedly caught site of some of his male employees' knees to his distress, are played brilliantly. Reddick manages to steal every scene of the show and sometimes even scenes he isn't even in, when you can imagine his character's reaction to whatever mayhem the rest of the team has set in motion.

The show is at its weakest when it's merely saying, "corporate culture isn't great, right?" but absolutely at its best when it takes that idea and illustrates it through extremes. An episode where the corporation tries to co-opt a radical artist protestor without interfering in his vision, leading to them confusedly funding adverts making themselves look terrible, is a great example of corporations trying to be hip and failing hard. Even better is the streaming episode, which ends with Lance Reddick making a nightmarish speech about acquiring IP and draining every bit of creativity from it and never letting it die, even if it means making spin-offs "about characters who cannot possibly sustain their own series." If there as ever a moment American television got self-aware about itself, this was it.

"There will be sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes and ill-advised spin-offs with side characters that cannot possibly carry their own series. We'll give the fans everything they want, and much, much more. We'll use an algorithm to churn out hundreds of scripts a day at virtually no cost. And sure, you'll complain about how it used to be better, but that anger will unite you. And you'll keep watching, hoping it will end, begging for it to end, and then you'll all die. And your children will watch it too, and so on. We're going to milk that creative IP until the UDDER RUNS DRY!

"This is the future of content, and CONTENT WILL NEVER DIE!"

The show doesn't always knock it out of the park. John doesn't have much characterisation beyond, "hey, he's weird, and every episode we'll make him weirder," and a lot of the secondary supporting cast doesn't have much to do. But the central cast (Reddick, Matt Ingbretson as Matt, Jake Weisman as Jake, Adam Lustick as John, Anne Dudek as Kate and Aparna Nancherla as Grace) all give good to great performances and, mostly, the ideas work well. The funniest episodes are genuinely hilarious, and the occasional tonal shifts into melancholy or even nihilism are effective.

Corporate (****) is an incisive, cutting and dark comedy that rarely stumbles and, in Lance Reddick's vainglorious CEO monster, it has a comedy character for the ages. The show is available to watch on Paramount+ in most territories.

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