Everything Sucks!

Sometimes the tones clash with each other--although less so as the show goes on--but it’s the grounded performances that keep it connected to something sweet and genuine.

Once the first few episodes have established the main story threads — Luke’s pursuit of Kate, a feud between the AV and theater kids that Luke attempts to squelch by teaming up to make a ’50s-style sci-fi movie starring Oliver and Emaline, a character contemplating a step out of the closet — Everything Sucks! manages to calm down and, like Kate, just exist. And it’s much more endearing in that mode: a lovable mix of elements from a lot of Netflix’s other recent YA series like Stranger Things, The End of the F***ing World, Big Mouth, and more, that also manages to feel distinctly like its own thing.

Thanks to a young-adult cast that’s rarely off-key (except intentionally, in the case of the amusing Liebling), as well as strong direction from Mohan and Ry Russo-Young (Nobody Walks), the series strikes a lively, lighthearted tone, even as it sensitively plumbs its protagonists’ longing, loneliness, and desire for acceptance and companionship.

These teens are selfish, sure, but they’re also more ambitious and earnest than they ever want to admit. When Everything Sucks! lets them realize that and let go of the idea that everything might just suck, it becomes much more comfortably quirky in its own way, its unabashedly bleeding heart in the right place.

Sucks! doesn’t hit the highs of a Netflix comedy such as BoJack Horseman, neither does it take the emotional risks of Netflix’s sorely underrated Love, which begins its final season on March 9. Sucks! has charm and will probably do what it exists to do in a context such as Netflix, which is to provide you with an easy, snackable show that can be binged without making you think too much about what you’re watching.

Everything has easy laughs and even easier cries, with a fair bit of filler in between (it’s another example of Netflix bloat). It’s all punctuated with relentless reminders of its late 1990s period--Columbia House mailers, VCRs and Discman players, “Seinfeld,” Hot Pockets, “Run, Forrest, run.” When a character checks her Tamagotchi, it’s time to surrender.

Even if it takes a while for audiences to catch on, Everything Sucks! matches well enough with the rest of the streaming service’s ecosystem: It is its own thing, just like many of the other Netflix shows we’re already binging.

Other stories intersect in Everything Sucks!, including the requisite parent plot that finds Luke’s mother and Kate’s father exploring the possibility of dating. All together, they form an earnest and sweet, if not particularly fresh, series.

Early episodes of “Everything Sucks!” are uneven at best. ... But it’s almost a different show in its final stretch of episodes. Once it finds its sweet spot, it becomes more than the sum of its influences. What emerges is a somewhat predictable but ultimately heartfelt and charming story about the ways in which self-knowledge is haltingly acquired by adolescents — and adults, too.

Everything Sucks! isn’t likely to become a classic, but with its binge-friendly short episodes, it may be perfect for viewers who want something that won’t demand a ton of time.

Everything Sucks! often falls back on its “Hey, remember the ’90s?” trappings to try to make up for a lack of consistent depth. ... Once you get about halfway through the season, “Everything Sucks!” dials in; it starts trusting its story about Kate, the narrative gets the go-ahead to “giddy up!” and things really start clicking.

Everything Sucks! makes other missteps in the credibility department, but it maintains an emotional sincerity that more than held my interest.

A title like “Everything Sucks!” just sort of hangs out there like a piñata, begging for someone to finally say “Yes! It does!” and follow through with the critical equivalent of a baseball bat. That would be grossly unfair, of course, even if the show’s flaws do deserve exclamation points. What does work is awesome.

Everything Sucks! has its heart in the right place. It wants to be good. It wants to be funny and, maybe more importantly, it aims to be earnest and sweet nearly as much as it wants to be hip and cool. It never really becomes what it wants, though, always shooting itself in the foot, but there are hints that something better is deeper inside or perhaps a season away (if people still wait around for those kinds of delayed discoveries).

When you title a show “Everything Sucks!” it can be viewed as an act of defiance or truth in advertising. Netflix’s new dramedy manages both in this sludge of teen angst.

In a debut season that eventually frames itself within the shaky alliance between the dweebs of Boring High’s A.V. club and the self-styled outsiders of the drama club, there’s a lot to Everything Sucks! that never gels.

Everything Sucks! can only sit by and envy “Freaks and Geeks’s” deft touch with memory, momentum, characters and dialogue. It’s difficult to portray teen awkwardness when the show itself is this clumsily conceived and executed.

Everything Sucks! is not the sharp 90s teen story I would have hoped for (there are actually still a lot of genuinely great 90s series from the 90s that hold up, like The Adventures of Pete and Pete and Daria), as it honey-coats the high school experience despite its title.