While it seems to have a leg up on its competitors in terms of the exclusive streaming rights it owns for popular TV shows, Hulu has not quite landed a smash hit original series on the level of Netflix’s House of Cards or Amazon’s Transparent. Hulu’s middling results in the originals department, however, are not for lack of effort. The latest big-name series to premiere on the online video platform is Casual, a sexed-up romantic comedy directed by Oscar nominee Jason Reitman.
Casual stars Tommy Dewey (The Mindy Project) and Michaela Watkins (Saturday Night Live) as Alex and Laura, cohabitating siblings who are raising Laura’s daughter together after a divorce. Across ten episodes, Casual will examine the shape of modern relationships. Judging from its trailer, there will also be plenty of sex jokes in there, too.
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The notable names Casual have enough clout to make the series a hit. The question, then, is whether the show is good enough to raise Hulu’s profile in the original programming world. Difficult People, Hulu’s last series, generated a fairly positive reception and even received enough attention to stir up a little controversy. Can Casual keep up the trend?
Most critics seem to be giving it a chance. David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle (who, it should be said, also loved Difficult People) is most bullish. “You’ll start watching this and find it funny and maybe a little sad,” he writes. “You may also spend a few minutes wondering whether it’s just too cynical to endure. But stay another few minutes. A lot of people have been in Valerie’s shoes, and maybe in Alex’s as well.”
On the other end of the spectrum is Variety’s Brian Lowry, who finds Casual to be a fine-but-unremarkable comedy. “The series just isn’t distinctive enough to separate itself from the pack, from the casting to the premise, in the way something like Hulu’s Difficult People did,” he writes.
In general, Casual has received a positive-enough response, and while it may not be that killer original series Hulu wants, it seems like a strong addition to the platform’s catalog. You can check it out on Hulu, where the first episode is available for free; watching the other nine will require a subscription to Hulu’s premium service.
