Karan Soni stars as Avinash on Amazon’s “Betas”.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: In an effort to emulate the success Netflix has had by producing original content for its online Instant Watch service, Amazon is launching two new original series via its Amazon Instant subscription. One of these is called “Betas,” a look at a small group of computer nerds looking to launch a mobile phone app and turn it into a profitable business.
The first episode of “Betas” premiered in April, and the rest of the season started on November 22, and the following episodes is available to stream for anyone with an Amazon Prime subscription.
Like some weird child of the Oscar-winning The Social Network and HBO’s hit comedy series “Entourage,” “Betas” examines how difficult it is to create and launch an app with enough witty dialogue and crude humor to make sure the show isn’t as boring as its premise may initially sound. And thankfully, the characters aren’t just rip-offs of the ones in “The Big Bang Theory,” the popular CBS show about nerds. It isn’t a revolutionary program that everyone at work will be talking about the next day, like “Game of Thrones” and “Homeland” are, but it’s not a total waste of time, either.
Four guys – Trey, Avinash (or Nash), Hobbes, and Mitchell – are behind an app called BRB, a social networking tool that “shows you who you should know” rather than just the people you already know. The four are all gifted coders, and have the software side of things down. Unfortunately, as many tech-oriented people are, they’re just not good with socializing in person, making it difficult for them to get angel investments and, perhaps more importantly, women.
The first episode, “Pilot,” does a good job of setting up each of the four main characters in broad strokes. Trey (Joe Dinicol) is clearly the leader of the group, and the one who is most normal when it comes to speaking with people who aren’t in his core circle of friends. Nash (Karan Soni), the Indian American of the group, is a typical anti-social geek who would rather walk around a party with his earphones in than actually socialize with the other guests (seeing him actually do this is hilarious). Hobbes (Jon Daly) is the oldest by far, at age 35, and is responsible for most of the show’s crass humor. The fourth friend, Mitchell (Charlie Saxton), is short and portly, but earnest and good-hearted.
Together, the four buddies share an easygoing camaraderie, and the actors have enough chemistry to make viewers believe that they’ve been friends for a while. Dinicol is an appealing lead and Saxton is easy to like, but Daly can get a little annoying, although thankfully his screen time is limited. Soni is the standout of the bunch, making Nash into the kind of nasal-voiced computer whiz we all know while never once descending into stereotype. Soni steals scenes from the other actors and makes you wish the show revolved around Nash more than Trey.
The second episode, “Kid Charlemagne,” sees the boys move into a new bachelor pad in San Francisco and introduces more potential social problems for the boys. Trey meets a cute blogger, who could end up turning into a long-term romance, Hobbes re-kindles relations with his ex, and Mitchell gets friendly with an Asian girl he meets. Only Nash seems to be more in love with devices than females, spending most of the episode in a coding war with a fellow programmer.
The third episode, “Waiting for a Girl Like You,” is difficult to talk about without spoiling some of the events of the preceding episode. After a mistake by Trey lands the boys and their company in hot water, they must pick up the pieces and find a way to salvage their enterprise before they’re forced to close things down for good. It also (thankfully) focuses a bit more on Nash, whose Indian parents try to persuade him into getting an arranged marriage and settling down, even though he’s far from ready.
In one of the show’s best lines, when Nash tells his parents that he simply hasn’t found the girl he’s looking for, his mother replies “The aunties have gotten together, and they have found you a match!”
Many will be turned off by the show’s foul language and sexual humor, but all of that lends the show an edge that makes the show more fun to watch (for the record, the show is not for young viewers at all, and would easily garner an R-rating if it was a movie). Comedy is inherently subjective; what some people find funny, others will think is awful, and “Betas” is no different.
In forthcoming episodes, it’ll be interesting to see how “Betas” chooses to balance its characters’ immature hi-jinks with their development into three-dimensional people. The best TV shows are about characters we actually care about, which heightens drama and humor. “Betas” has the potential to be a can’t-miss comedy; so far, it’s off to a solid start.
[Photos courtesy of Amazon.com]
To contact the author email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com