Will Forte's new Fox television show "The Last Man on Earth" premiered last night with two episodes, including one titled "Alive in Tucson." That's right, folks: in a beautiful alternate universe Will Forte is running around in his underwear, blowing up cars and drinking out of inflatable pools somewhere off Oracle.
The show tells Forte's story of searching the continent for anyone, with no success. "The Virus" has done away with everyone and Forte is left to roam around by himself. Eventually, discouraged, Forte (well, his character Phil—it doesn't look like this was actually filmed in Tucson) heads to the Old Pueblo.
From the A.V. Club:
Where Tucson once felt like his sunny retirement spot, it’s now a desert blanched of color. It’s no longer a playground; it’s a vast emptiness that’s devoid of any sign of life, whether that means human bodies leftover from The Virus or even a single sign of animal life.That's us! Wooo!?
The reviews thus far seem generally positive, praising the balance of humor and grief.
More from the A.V. Club:
The Last Man On Earth is in no rush to answer the question it raises. For 18 astonishing minutes, we follow one person’s struggle to maintain his humanity in a human-free world. That’s it. There is one brief flashback to Phil’s life in “the old world,” and the arrival of Kristen Schaal’s “last woman on earth” at the episode’s end signals where the series might be going for a while, but the vast majority of the Forte-penned pilot rests on his shoulders as Phil goes through all the stages of grief, all by himself.And some thoughts from Entertainment Weekly:
Oh, but it’s a comedy—and a very funny one at that.
The Last Man on Earth is the ultimate Gen-X dystopian fantasy, but with a sober twist that makes it more like that Twilight Zone episode about Burgess Meredith after the apocalypse, tailored to a hyper-relational social-media age. Hooray! Phony, rotten civilization has finally fallen away! We can play with our toys and talk about pop culture and just hang out and chill…except everyone’s dead. Womp-womp!Womp-womp indeed. I haven't had the chance to watch it yet. Tell me, Tucson: Are we proud to have our name on this?
