Non-Essential Personnel Ep.3 “Leaks” | A Web Series Review on The Watch List

A Family Drama Web Series

3 Swirlies

NON-ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL Episode 3: Leaks from grammar school on Vimeo.

“Next press release there’s gonna be men fucking all over it.”

In episode 3 of Non-Essential Personnel, we finally get to meet some of Jonathon’s office mates, who up until now have had a couple of lines. And these are long episodes, too. At the end of this one we’re more than half an hour in.

Much like earlier episodes, most of what happens in this ep is just stalling for the abrupt ending. The episode, like the series, is fine… there’s a couple of chuckles and despite the fact that much of the sets are bland gray, the production is pretty good. I think the pacing could be sped up, quite a bit in fact, but that’s just me.

It is just that I’m kinda not sure what this show is trying to do. Is it trying to be a satire? Is it trying to be a broad comedy? Is it trying to be a dramedy? The scene with Jonathon’s wife certainly didn’t have much in the way of laughs in it, even though the scene before was about as broad as you get. It almost feels like it is trying to be something different in each scene, but that makes the whole show feel muddy.

Yeah, I’m being kinda hard on it. Sorry guys. I do really like the title design.

From Website Description:

Jonathan struggles to maintain control of his rapidly expanding plot against Mercury.

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Non-Essential Personnel Ep.2 “The Why Documents”

Jonathan endangers his job by pursuing classified material for his book.

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2 Swirlies

NON-ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL Episode 2: The Why Documents from grammar school on Vimeo.

“You’ve got the who and the what. But there’s no why.”

I kinda kept waiting for the episode to start. I’m looking at the time line, and at almost 7 minutes, Jonathon still hasn’t done much to steal the documents he’s after.

But then his jerky boss catches him in the act. There’s a nice twist at the ending (if not very surprising) but the rest of the episode is mostly a long stall. Sure, Jonathon wants to get the documents, but he doesn’t try very hard to overcome the very small obstacles in his path to getting there.

Non-Essential Personnel Ep1. “Corporate Solutions”

Mercury Systems announces a new corporate policy that doesn’t sit well with Jonathan Clark and his co-workers at the Portland office.

3 Swirlies

“Really? How many kills? Per week or per month? Bullshit.”

A twists on the office comedy.

This is a satire of the U.S. military industrial complex, about office workers at a Blackwater type place.

Oh, is it just me, or does Vimeo always take forever to buffer? Waiting… waiting…

Okay, here we go.

I’m not sure if there’s just more new series, or if I’m getting easier at spotting them in the wild, but somehow I suddenly came across a whole whack of new series. This is one of them.

Like many first episodes, this one suffers from being all set up. We meet a lot of characters, but then they each get one or two lines. There’s no development.

My favourite is the main guy’s boss, the ex-general type. He’s the only one that seems to have any actual funny lines.

The production is really great, the camera work and sound editing is good. The acting is pretty good. There’s nothing about it that’s not competent, it’s just not really all that entertaining. Sorry to say, but that’s how I feel.

We’ll check out the second episode and see if things pick up.