The show’s popularity has grown gradually by the week, perhaps one contributing factor being its accessibility to new viewers: the show lacks the sequential plot lines of other HBO series, meaning you can watch any single episode without missing a beat.

Flight of the Conchords offers a brand of comedy HBO has certainly never served, and even Comedy Central can’t claim anything similar. 

Jemaine and Bret, the main characters, comprise a band called Flight of the Conchords.  They share a small apartment in New York and await their break with the help of their manager, Murray, a Kiwi who works for the New Zealand Consulate and manages the band on the side (though from his office at the Consulate).  We follow their lives as they navigate the difficult world of aspiring musicians, made all the more difficult by Murray’s incompetence.

The show’s signature dry humor focuses on unexpected perspectives and situations that aren’t immediately clear at the outset.  Jemaine pursues a girl in one episode and teaches Bret the concept of “The Wingman,” hoping his mate will assist in securing female company.  Bret ends up impressing the girl more, of course, and he attempts to fight her off in a manner traditionally reserved for women.  The girl uses every stereotypical male line in the book to persuade him into sex.  When Bret finally succumbs after much debate, the affair is quick and unsatisfying, as Bret relays it to Jemaine.  The girl, having quenched her appetite, no longer wants anything to do with Bret despite her previous claim of having fallen in love with him.  To evade his attention, she says she’s shipping off to Iraq the next day, a lie Bret discovers when he catches her at work instead.  

But it’s the show’s music that ties it all together.  Breaking into song at random plot developments, Flight of the Conchords is essentially a music video made of three or four songs per episode.  The wordy, analytical and very literal lines, accompanied by the band’s quite serious take on the situation and the toe-tapping nature of the tunes makes the 30-minutes of Flight of the Conchords sail by.

In one song Jemaine, singing in his funky, deep-toned style reminiscent of soul crooners of the 70s, imagines the sexual relationship he hopes to have in married life with a female who wants nothing to do with him.  Her disinterest, as is almost always the case with women in Jemaine’s life, is entirely unapparent to him.  He sings, “Then we’re in the bathroom, brushing our teeth – that’s all part of the four-play – I love four-play.  Then you sort out the recycling; that’s not part of the four-play process but it’s still very important.  Next thing you know we’re in the bedroom; you’re wearing that baggy, old, ugly t-shirt that you got from your work several years ago…mmmm…you know the one baby.” 

A refreshing characteristic of Flight of the Conchords is the show’s utter disregard for drama.  There’s not a whiff of seriousness in the 30 minutes, made all the more humorous by Jemaine and Bret’s perpetually serious expressions.  It’s a pleasant gesture on HBO’s part to end the Sunday night lineup with such lightheartedness.

Flight of the Conchords has also helped HBO strategically.  The show, though accessible to any generation, is geared more to a younger audience that, until now, the network has largely ignored.  Will the fall lineup continue to captivate that audience, or is the show merely an experiment? 

Scott Goldberg