PEN15 (Season One)

“PEN15” aims to hit a crossection of cringe, emotion-based drama, and dark and absurdist humor, and that it leans hard on cringe for its first two episodes left me dreading the remaining eight. Go figure, then, that the third episode (“Ojichan”) was outstanding and the worst of the rest of it was basically alright, with both the recurring gags and underlying dramatic beats paying off for astute audiences. There’s even some effective metahumor about working around the limitations posed by the ages of the actors portraying the protagonists. It’s a good season of television hampered by that damned “beloved” cringe.

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