Review: No Activity “It’s Not a Cult!”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The season four premiere follows Cullen (Patrick Brammall) as a newly employed FBI agent. He finds that his new job is not what he expected, while Officers Tolbeck (Tim Meadows) and Reinhardt (Joe Keery) continue to bond at the SDPD. Meanwhile, Dirk (Will Forte) and Sue (Samara Weaving) begin their new adventure as a newly married couple.

Our Take:

It’s no surprise that a popular show tends to spice things up in the later seasons to maintain its audience’s interest. Whether it’s by introducing new characters or placing them in different environments, the networks responsible for their shows constantly churn out some new ideas to keep the popularity going for as long as they can. Some shows work well in their favor, while others fall short compared to their humble beginnings. For No Activity, the most significant change it made for season four was the format. Rather than displaying the live-action form for the last three seasons, the show reintroduces the world of cops and criminals using CG animation.

The fourth season picks up where the last season left off, with Cullen working as an FBI agent and Tolbeck working with his new partner Reinhardt as police officers. Tolbeck was having a great time hanging out with his partner during a police shift. However, Cullen wasn’t so fortunate as he felt like a fish-out-of-water in the FBI department. He just wants a new pass to get to his desk, dang it! The show’s formula remains the same, with different groups of two people sharing awkward yet amusing conversations in-between the action. It works reasonably well in the last three seasons, and it still worked well in this episode.

The conversations were indeed uncomfortable to listen to at times, especially when Dirk and Sue were talking about having children, which led to a semen joke. However, they were also pretty enjoyable to engage in, primarily due to the humor and the cast. Brammall and Meadows still delivered some likable performances as Cullen and Tolbeck, respectively, while the guest stars were decent enough to follow suit, especially Forte and Weaving.

The animation format gives the series a new coat of paint in terms of the visuals. Unfortunately, seeing it in motion has me very concerned for the latest season’s future. On the one hand, the animation for the character designs and the environments were top-notch and accurately represented the show’s style. On the other hand, some of the characters’ movements made it look more distracting than appealing. It looked like the animators attempted to provide a mixture of CGI and stop-motion in how the characters and the vehicles move. From what I’ve seen so far, I’m not a huge fan of how they provided the animation.

There were a few moments where the animation movements looked smooth. However, they were quickly overshadowed by the other sequences that have choppy frame movements. They almost resembled an internet video buffering every few seconds. It’s not a pleasant thing to witness.

No Activity’s fourth season gets off to a decent start thanks to its entertaining cast and suitable humor. The animation style may become a big nuisance for me as the season continues, but I’m more than willing to see where this season goes from here despite that issue. The first episode ends on a cliffhanger with Cullen starting his cult investigation, and Tolbeck and Reinhardt accidentally driving their police car into the water. So it would be interesting to see how the latter will get out of that predicament in the next episode.