Season Review: Blark and Son Season One

Took long enough.

Eight months later and Blark and Son finally get its rightful conclusion all thanks to the social content team of Comedy Central. The Ben Bayouth directed/starring series follows Blark (Bayouth) and his son, “Son” (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) in numerous failed attempts at trying to be closer to each other. The problem is, the duo couldn’t be more different. What, with Blark’s interests being more aligned with outdoor activities like hunting and Son acting as more of an ardent gamer, the two do everything they can do to have their interests aligned which, as the season progresses, actually become more assimilated when they get their various house guests like Stacey (Jim Rash), Fletch (Donald Faison), and Stacey’s son Junior (Justin Roiland) showing that the two have more in common than what’s shown at face value.

Each episode of Blark and Son runs about eight minutes long, but over the course of 16 episodes, the show does a good job of not being stagnant despite the fact that we usually stay confined to, at most, three settings. The series really is perfect for Comedy Central, it’s one of the few web series that has no problem staying PG-13 and, better yet, is a smart PG-13 which is very uncommon considering the medium in which the series is presented. The producers have no problem going into dark corners and Bayouth puts a lot of care and attentiveness to his delivery that really hasn’t been seen a lot in live-action/animation and I think we have the burgeoning career of someone we need to keep our eye on. His take on “Blark” is passable, but Christopher Mintz-Plasse by far shows way more range than we’ve seen before by the voice actor and, quite frankly, “Son” might be one of his best roles yet…yep sorry How to Train Your Dragons fans, Mintz-Plasse is clearly having more fun here.

With fabulous guest appearances by the likes of Patton Oswalt and the aforementioned Justin Roiland together with a forward-thinking producer in Ben Bayouth, I’m not sure Blark and Son is going to be the thing we all remember Ben for, but the series will be looked back on as an important stepping stone to something greater. What is that? Who knows, but if I’m Comedy Central trying to rebuild my youth roster with the likes of Amy Schumer, Key & Peele, and others leaving for greener pastures, I’m looking here.