Strike.TV Heats Up with Global Warming

Global Warming sounds great on paper; a web comedy show with the likes of SNL’s Kristen Wiig, The Daily Show’s Assif Mandvi, not to mention writers from the Daily Show and Penn & Teller: Bullshit (Rob Kutner and Sheryl Zohn).

And bu-ya! It is. Good, well-written, subtle comedy reign supreme here on this Strike TV web series. Kristine, a romantically hopeful office worker (Wiig), starts a budding Instant Message romance with a swooning tech support guy based in India (Mandvi) who goes by the name “Ace.”

Kristine lives a life full of the stench of lonilness and micowaved ziti; all to the tune of wisecracking coworkers. The one thing that excites her office life at Vast Corp Incorporated is the when the database crashes and she has to request outsourced tech support. Kristine (or KM 78 as she’s known online) lights a candle, lets her hair down, and applies lip gloss when its time to text chat with Ace (who revs up before their online session by listening to love serenades from the Bee Gees).

With great comedic performances all around, Global Warming is easily relatable to anyone who has ever tried to have a long distance relationship via the Internet. Comparisons to The Office

are going to be inevitable, but this web series truly knows it’s target audience. A sizable demographic could easily watch these 3 minute episodes in their cubicles as a momentary, work-day palate cleanser. In that therapeutic sense it’s kinda like Office Space, only shorter.

Nice cliffhanger to the first episode of Global Warming. Ace gets fired by cantakerious boss (Mindy Kaling from The Office and House Poor), when his IM flirting interrupts the workflow.

“Why have you stopped typing? Are you trying to slow us down, causing foreign companies to send our work to Bangladesh?” she barks. This is just what Ace has been waiting for.  In turn, he flies over from India and shows up unexpected at Kristine’s office.

“It’s the tech support guy!” the receptionist proclaims to Kristine who thinks it’s a practical joke. Like what happens in The Guild when, “hardcore online gamers stop gazing into their laptops and cross into the messy territory of real life,” Global Warming explores the awkward territory of an across-the-world Instant Message relationship that’s materialized into something far more tangible.

I’m hooked, and look forward to see how virtual romance will transfer to physical romance. Watch the transition unfold at Strike.TV.