Jason Allen

“Quit while you’re ahead” seems the most appropriate adage for Smith’s latest installment of the Clerks saga. Perhaps intended as a tribute to his legions of fans that watched and loved the original Clerks for its off color rebellious humor and originality, Clerks III missed the mark by going completely mainstream in the form of a dramedy. Smith attempts this hybrid by combining very serious life issues with dick jokes which blend together like oil and water. If you’re tuning in for a respite of levity, my advice is to look elsewhere.

Based on the novel, “44 Chapters About 4 Men” It should come as no surprise that this hokey series comes across as nothing more than a cheap romance novel with a bare chested Fabio gracing the cover. Replete with nothing but first world problems, the protagonist doesn’t just come across as unlikable. At best, she comes across as unrelatable, all the while surrounded by perfect looking people, in her slightly less than perfect life. Torn between her extremely handsome, successful, Eagle Scout of a husband and her extremely handsome, successful, bad boy ex boyfriend, not only does she she manage to blow up her marriage, she throws a wrench in everyone else’s relationship/marriage making them nothing more than victims of her collateral damage. The sex scenes are plentiful (almost gratuitous at some point), but due to the abundance of cliches, the viewer is likely to experience more eye rolling than the characters on the screen. The script seems as if it was written by the junior varsity writing team, full of predictable one liners. Too bad the title, “High School Confidential” has already been penned as it seems it would be apt for this silly, and hopefully very limited series.