portlandia

portlandia:Has there ever been a better-targeted show than Portlandia? A gentle sketch-comedy sendup (debuting tonight) of high-minded, laid-back, arts-focused, sustainability-oriented living in Portland, Ore., for IFC channel, it is, essentially, a comedy for people who watch IFC, about people who would watch IFC (if they owned televisions), on IFC. It’s regionally specific, but really also a spoof of a certain interstate psychographic of small cities, college towns and neighborhoods. And as a former resident of Ann Arbor and a current one of Park Slope, Brooklyn (NYC is too expensive to be properly laid-back but it’s the closest local approximation), I’m probably as dead-center in its demo as for any show outside Bored to Death.

All that is to say: your mileage may vary, especially if you do not live within a half-mile of a community-supported-agriculture distribution center or in a town with a municipal bike-share program. But while the first two episodes of Portlandia are hit-and-miss, its good-natured satire generally hits, as they say, pretty close to home.