Happy!

This first episode is such accomplished, vigorous fun, I highly recommend that you give it a look. I also guarantee you’ll wince a few times at what Nick goes through, and you’ll be glad he’s now got a chipper Happy in his life.

At best, Happy! is flying toward something bigger than what it finds in these first two episodes; a point or a connection or an original conceit beyond the entertainingly over-the-top nature of its core story. At worst, it’s just throwing a bunch of blood at the wall and hoping the shock is what sticks. Either way, it will be fun to see how crazy the Syfy series can get before it blows its top.

When all of its parts are working in unison, Happy! is a stylish mix of violence and unhinged humor, which, while not exactly a fresh concept, still manages to be engrossing.

Happy! captures the tone “Marvel’s the Punisher” should have aspired to: grisly, gross and nutty without abandon.

The action in the pilot is so breathlessly high-octane, it’s borderline exhausting. The pitch-black humor and dystopian funk veer dangerously close to ugliness at times. And outside of Smoothie, Nick’s antagonists are too thinly drawn to make an impression. ... But if you like your TV dramas gory, action-packed and ruthlessly funny? Meet your new favorite show.

SyFy made two episodes available for review, and they were both over-the-top and funny. The only question is whether the show is too high-concept for the long haul. That’s always the potential danger of high-concept shows, but if the writers can keep coming up with workable story lines, viewers will have reason enough to stay happy.

Happy! has those films’ [the Crank movies] wild, pell-mell sense of pace and jittery, overcaffeinated style. But the series’ scripts are smart about undercutting the wild mayhem and constant introduction of new ideas with a bittersweet holiday angst.

It could run out of ideas fast, but watching Mr. Meloni argue with a cartoon unicorn probably won’t get old.

As a comedy or even an action series, Happy! is far from perfect. But if you’re up for venturing down a dark path where the only one seemingly capable of the titular emotion is someone’s imaginary friend, it still might make you smile.

It’s the kind of project that dances so interestingly on the edge of abrasiveness that one bad storytelling turn could send it off the dark side forever. And yet there’s something almost thrilling about watching Morrison, Taylor, Meloni, Oswalt, and the rest of the gang keep this crazy top spinning for two episodes.

The level of crazy in Happy! isn't inspired enough, nor is its story interesting enough to measure up to the genre's best, but in Meloni, it has a star capable of measuring up to any outlandish competition.

Happy! communicates such joy in filmmaking that the show seems graceful and airy even though the material is mostly leaden. If you’re able to view Happy! mainly as an exercise in style and attitude, with a brilliant lead performance, you’ll find a lot to admire here.

Meloni’s performance and the strength of the source material will keep the show afloat for interested viewers. But based on the first two episodes, it’s an acquired, specific taste.

By the end of the second hour, the series becomes an entertainment best absorbed in doses, as the initial excitement calcifies into a kind of apathy that detracts from the appeal Meloni and Oswalt grant to the story.

Meloni is terrific as usual--a long way from the solid Elliot Stabler on “SVU,” but it’s a stretch to appreciate a “hero” who describes his life as “an ever-swirling toilet that just won’t flush” and follow his cracked personality. With only two episodes to judge from, the jury is out on Happy! My guess, though is that it’s an acquired taste and only for certain people.

At one extreme, you want Santa dead. At the other, it can get to be ho ho hum in a hurry.

Other than Hailey and Happy all the characters are a different shade of terrible, which gets kind of boring unless you’re tuning in only for the fight scenes that invariably end in bloodbaths.

Frankly, it's an odd fit for Syfy, closer in tone to AMC's "Preacher" than anything else, with perhaps a touch of another graphic novel brought to screen, "Sin City," for good measure.

Meloni holds things together admirably but even his rousing comedic inventiveness gets drowned out by the empty edginess that Taylor & Co. have evinced here.