The first episode of Ileana Douglas's Easy to Assemble is up and all I can say is "huh?"
Did they forget to write a script? There is no story here and perhaps not even a plan about how to fill up the episode time. The blurb tells us that it's Illeana's first day on the job and raises the question "will she survive?" So that's what it's about; I couldn't tell from watching.
We open on Illeana and her co-worker Lance who is decked out in a bright yellow wig -- does someone think that makes him funny? Illeana explains the premise to him:
I'm an actress and Ikea is paying me... well you see they hired me to um... I'm famous so I don't really have to work. I just add a little sparkle... a little twinkle as George Segal says.
Next comes a montage of Illeana and Lance doing unfunny things in an Ikea warehouse. The emphasis is on Lance's mugging for the camera, apparently Illeana is the straight man here. Although she is the one who assembles an Ikea table with the legs all askew. Wow, not even remotely funny.
There's a scene in which Lance and Illeana give names to Ikea products. Calling a lampshade Peter Sellers is sort of amusing, but will the reference (like the one to George Segal) play to an internet audience? Or is it hopeless outdated?
Now comes a musical interlude, complete with colourful graphics, music credits and lyrics on the screen. I don't know why. Maybe a song break is a regular feature in the series. Maybe it's more brand integration. Intercut with the musical break, is a sequence with two people in Ikea uniforms talking about how Illeana is nice and brings lots of customers into the store. We go back to this pair for the last minute and a half of the episode as they talk about all the cliches associated with Sweden in Swedish accents.
I still can't the Easy to Assemble website to work. I thought maybe it was a geo-blocking issue, but I found and watched the first episode on YouTube, so I guess that's not the problem. I don't know what is.
So, what we have here is a web series that doesn't have a story, isn't funny, has blah characters and fills up six minutes with pretty much nothing. Any reason to watch another episode? They did promise cameos by Jeff Goldblum and Justine Bateman, so maybe. Plus Illeana has done better work. But all in in all, there's very little reason to check out this first episode of Easy to Assemble. But if you must, here it is:
