Two of my very favourite comedy shows, My Name Is Earl and Raising Hope, were created by the same man: Greg Garcia. So I'm beyond excited to discover that Garcia has a brand new comedy show featuring some of my favourite actors – and it's currently scoring 100% with the Rotten Tomatoes audience.
The show is called Sprung, and it's on Amazon's Freevee. That's Amazon's free-to-watch streaming service, which you might not have tried yet. I think Sprung is worth signing up for, and while you're there you can check out one of my other favourite shows, the cheesy but compelling cop drama Bosch Legacy.
But let's talk about Sprung.
Is Sprung on Amazon Freevee worth watching?
I'd say yes even if I didn't know what it was about: Garcia's new show features some of the stars from his previous shows including Martha Plimpton and Gareth Dillahunt, and the cast also includes top talent such as James Earl III (Glee) and Shakira Barrera (Glow). But the plot made me laugh too.
Sprung follows three ex-cons who get released from prison just as the COVID pandemic is arriving – so with the whole country going into lockdown, their options are somewhat limited. So naturally they end up living with one of the cons' mum, who gets them involved with her very own criminal operation: stealing Amazon packages.
The reviews so far have been really positive. The Wall Street Journal says it's a smart comedy about some very dopey people, The Upcoming says its cast of "lovable idiots" is just as charming as in My Name Is Earl, and Decider gave it a firm STREAM IT rating: "it continues Garcia’s formula of telling funny stories about people down on their luck and scraping to get by, mixed with heartfelt moments that show that his characters have some human emotions. But the other reason why it works is that it’s the first show that really points out the absurdity those first days, weeks and months of the pandemic were."
This is a must-watch for me: Garcia's comedy is never mean, and no matter how dumb or misguided his characters may be they're always eminently likeable. If you're looking for something to give you big laughs, add this one to your Freevee watch list.
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Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).