Strip Law

While Strip Law has its moments, it’s most a loud, gag-heavy comedy that doesn’t really take its time to make its main characters into real people.

It’s interested in spectacle, absurdity, and laughs, and it’s invested in holding your attention, despite ample temptations elsewhere. Over the course of its 10-episode first season, it does just enough to earn all four, making it an odd little success for anyone in need of an escape.

“Strip Law” just isn’t funny. As with all comedies, your mileage may vary, but I couldn’t even get through the first season. Maybe you like “Hoops,” too.

If you asked me to explain why I found it very difficult to build a connection to the show that goes deeper than “I can’t wait to see what weird ’80s thing they’ll acknowledge next,” it’s that, for all their checklist of traumas (well-summarized with gynecological specificity in the penultimate episode), none of the characters in Strip Law feel like…people.

The series felt a little off-putting at first, as if it were straining for effect, but gathered steam as it went on, either because the later episodes are weirder or better written, or because one just gets used to being in that world with those people.

The joke density of “Strip Law,” so rare on TV these days, makes it enormously likeable. So do the vocal performances. .... But there’s also a deftly cultivated backstory that gives Lincoln’s arc some emotional stakes on top of its entertainment value.

Satire, even manic stuff like this, needs perspective just as much as joke velocity. Strip Law stands accused of biffing a solid concept, though its enthusiasm in doing so is hardly a crime.