Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
‘Loaded’ makes it hard to care about software successes
We already have HBO’s Emmy-nominated “Silicon Valley,” one of the funniest, smartest shows on TV about a tech startup, and then there is the underestimated ‘80s computing drama “Halt and Catch Fire” on AMC.
So is there room for the software dramedy “Loaded,” starting Monday on AMC? Maybe, as an afterthought.
The eight-episode series centers on the lives of four 30-something friends who have just sold their startup videogame company Idyl Hands to an American company for millions of pounds. Money transforms people, and Josh (Jim Howick), Leon (Samuel Anderson), Ewan (Jonny Sweet) and Watto (Nick Helm) immediately indulge their most infantile and meanest impulses.
They buy useless things, and want to rub their newly found success into anyone’s face who didn’t invest in them or who didn’t think they were talented. Leon even goes back to his high school to preen in front of a teacher who told him he was lazy.
It turns out the teacher has terminal lung cancer and still isn’t impressed. “Loaded” is filled with mostly embarrassing moments, as the guys — not a bad lot — have no idea how to handle having money.
It’s all rather thin, even with the subplot of the fellows’ still having to work for the American company that bought them under the aggressive and sarcastic Casey (Mary McCormack). At first she tries to force them to make a follow-up to Cat Factory, the insipid app they invented. When they balk, she insists on them coming up with a new game entirely — and reapplying for their jobs.
If you’re still with the series by that point, the lads have probably grown on you. But the humor is mushy, mostly based on the characters’ being neurotic. Unlike “Silicon Valley,” there is little at stake in many of the situations in “Loaded,” which undercuts it further.
The series is kind of like a cat-game app. It might amuse you for a while, but it’s still a cat-game app.