Fantasmas

I loved it. It's a wild ride — absurd, disturbing, demented, hilarious, brilliant. .... Like the best TV, the product of a singular vision. If anyone complains there's nothing different out there, show them this. They can thank you later.

Torres’ latest project is a gift. Fantasmas is special because it feels both fresh and familiar, making it one the very best new shows of the year.

By the end of its run, Fantasmas establishes itself as a powerful rebuke to mid TV. This is long-form, sketch-like episodic television at its most inventive. With this wild ride of a show, Torres continues to prove he’s one of our most astute storytellers working today.

Arcs snake in and around a variety of tangentially or unrelated short stories — “sketches” would not do them justice — which might work their way into other stories down the line. Some are horror stories, some have a tinge of film noir. Some are framed as television shows. Some are oddly moving. Several will meet at the end, quite beautifully.

[Julio Torres'] weirdest and most wonderful creation to date.

Torres has successfully forged a platform for his uncompromised, unfiltered voice. But between the lines, “Fantasmas” hints at how hard he’s had to fight to stay himself, even if his work suggests Torres couldn’t be anyone else if he tried.

If you have a taste for Torres’ particular and peculiar vibe, takes its place as one of the best of the year so far.

If his other recent work has come with a noticeable melancholy amid the surrealism, Fantasmas offers pure, playful glee.

Fantasmas is a good example of a show where viewers just need to buckle in and enjoy the visual and auditory ride, instead of trying to figure out exactly what is going on. The less you try to compare it to any other show you’ve seen, the more you’ll enjoy this journey through Julio Torres’ head.

There are certain themes and stylistic motifs that Torres returns to again and again — Swinton plays a water spirit who lives in Julio’s commode(*), just as his Los Espookys character frequently sought answers from garishly-dressed spirits. But they work more often than not (the Santa trial is one of the few that lands almost entirely flat) because they’re so obviously specific to this creator-performer, and because they’re done with such imagination even when he’s returning to old ideas.

It doesn't strain to provoke, but probably will, amid small moments of pure joy: An online influencer, for instance, being literally throttled by his own algorithm. "Fantasmas" offers sights you didn't know you wanted to see.

Your experience of “Fantasmas” may depend on your taste for Torres’s brand of offbeat riffs and fanciful imagery. But whether you find it tickling or twee, there is substance at its heart.

Where this could feel cloying in less dexterous hands, the way it is all wrapped up in a series that is never lacking flair or creativity makes it work.

Sketch comedies by their nature tend towards inconsistency, and Fantasmas is no exception, but its strong style and vision provide a high baseline of entertainment even when the jokes are hit-or-miss and the connecting narrative doesn’t come together as satisfyingly as it could. It’s like nothing else currently on television, and it’s fun to live in Torres’ mind for these six half-hours.