Series Review: Superstore, a Workplace Sitcom

There have been plenty of workplace sitcoms which have done quite amazing on television like The Office and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and they've even left everlasting imprint on their audience. The beauty of such sitcoms is that they turn an ordinary setting into something exciting, fun and at times relatable.

Superstore is an American sitcom following the lives of employees of a fictional big-box chain store Cloud 9 in St. Louis, Missouri. It is not merely a comic take on the working of a superstore but also brings forward pressing and controversial issues in the corporate world to light.

I've finished the 6 season series just recently and there are somethings which I loved and somethings which I really did not. Let's dive into the review of Superstore.

Superstore

Initial Reactions and Storyline

I was pretty excited about this show because I have seen workplace sitcoms and they can be a blast. I absolutely loved the vibe of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and felt that this would have a similar vibe to it.

My first impressions were good- there was a diverse cast and each with distinctive traits and characteristics. The show was visually very bright and fresh- shades of blue and white dominating all over and character quips were fun to see.

Superstore brought up certain pressing issues throughout the 6 seasons. Much of them being corporate related- lack of maternity leaves, suppression of unions, lack of approachability and office politics. Another thing which I liked which they portrayed was immigration, especially undocumented one and how it impacts the person in that situation.

Characters and their Development

Amy (America Ferrera) and Jonah's (Ben Fledman) relationship in the beginning was quite obvious- their interaction alone was enough to convey they're going to be a couple keeping apart the fact that there are certain complications for that to happen.

I absolutely loved Dina Fox's (Lauren Ash) role. As a bird mom myself, I could feel and relate to how Dina takes care of her birds and even the mix of her naivety and bold, take-no-f's attitude. I loved her character development the most, how she got more trusting, more emotionally attuned and more dependable towards the end.

The Pace...

I'll be honest here. I watched the first three seasons devotedly but after that, even if I did watch every episode of season 4, I either skipped a whole episode or kept on skipping the dialogues and talks.

It became repetitive and monotonous.

It's not that the show was reusing the same incident, same thing over and over but it still felt there was nothing new. I was getting bored of the long, sometimes unnecessary conversations the characters kept having, the 'delayed' action scene with nothing of substance to fill the gap. At times it felt like many episodes were fillers as they do in anime.

This feeling was so bad that I did not even see the 5th season. I didn't feel like watching more of it knowing that it's just going to be a sort of 'build up'. What I did instead was get on Wikipedia, skim through the basic episode description and jumped right to the 3rd last episode of season 6.

And frankly, it didn't feel like I missed anything.

I did love the concluding finale episode where the character arcs have completed individually and on the whole and the way it was presented. Pretty sweet and emotional.

Concluding Thoughts

My review of Superstore is mix.

While I loved certain aspects greatly- presentation of corporate issues, character development, a light yet impactful storyline, there were definitely some which I didn't like at all- the slow pace, the monotony and excessive long conversations.

All in all it's a pretty decent show if you don't mind the pace!

I'd rate Superstore a 2.5/5!