Stream It Or Skip It: ‘I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson’ On Netflix, A Weird Sketch Show By The Former ‘SNL’er

Tim Robinson is one of the few former SNL cast members that wrote for the show after being a featured player. It seemed that writing was his bailiwick more than performing. But then he returned to in front of the camera in the cult series Detroiters. Now, with his new Netflix sketch show I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, he does both. Read on to find out more…

I THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE WITH TIM ROBINSON: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A man is wrapping up a job interview that has gone well. When he goes to leave the coffee shop, he pushes the door instead of pulling. To cover his mistake, he forces the door to pull, to the point where the hinges fly off.

The Gist: You may remember Tim Robinson from his Comedy Central series Detroiters, but he’s likely most recognizable as a one-year featured player from Saturday Night Live during the 2012-13 season. One distinction he’s had in his career is that, after that year in the cast, Robinson went behind the scenes on SNL as a writer for four more seasons.

So, in this sketch series he produced with the Lonely Island guys, Robinson does quick-hit sketches that deal with extreme discomfort, embarrassment and even abject humiliation. And he utilizes a ton of guest stars, many of which he worked with at Studio 8H. In one of the 17-minute episodes, Will Forte guests as a strange man who harasses Tim on a flight because Tim kept him awake on a flight in the early ’80s… when Tim was a baby. In another sketch, Vanessa Bayer plays a woman who can’t quite get the right tone for an Instagram post of her and her friends having brunch. Another sketch has Tim’s Detroiters co-star, Sam Richardson, hosting a baby beauty contest.

Our Take: Sketch shows are always a hit-and-miss proposition, but in the two episodes we watched, I Think You Should Leave was more miss than hit.

We get the fact that Robinson has an overall theme in mind with his sketches; he wants to show situations of discomfort or embarrassment. But the problem is, those moments are often projected out to the point of absurdity, like in a parody of a lawyer commercial where he defends people who had workers come into their house and bully them. It’s been said that if you heighten a situation for laughs three times, then leave the audience wanting more, you have the most impact. But Robinson and his writers often go to four, five, six or more examples, and it makes us just want to turn off the show and see what 42-episode Taiwanese drama Netflix has debuted recently.

It’s hard to put our finger on why we didn’t laugh during the episodes we saw; it could be that many of the sketches seemed to be searching for the joke, or that at times he was punching down. But, for the most part, there just didn’t seem to be any center of gravity to any of the sketches, which is why they spun out of control so quickly, even though many of them are under three minutes.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: When a friend (played by Steven Yeun) doesn’t overpraise Tim’s birthday gift, he asks for the gift receipt back, then eats it. When he gets sick, he suspects the friend pooped and didn’t wash his hands. He eventually gets everyone to leave, and pays the ultimate price.

Sleeper Star: None?

Most Pilot-y Line: The last sketch of episode 1 is the perfect example of a sketch that went two steps too far. He could have just left it at eating the receipt so his friend couldn’t return it. Or he could have left it at the point where he makes people think the friend has poop on his hands. But then another couple offers to eat another receipt to prove the poop theory. It’s just too much.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Robinson’s a funny guy, but for some reason nothing on I Think You Should Leave hits the mark.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson on Netflix