It doesn’t take a lot for viewers to see when a show is trying too hard to be weird.
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show → take → lot
The new Apple TV comedy Small Prophets comes by its quirks naturally, which makes for a very enjoyable show to watch.
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which → come → show
Boxes are stacked floor to ceiling.
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Boxes → stack → ceiling
Other spots are covered with pictures.
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spots → cover → pictures
Michael Sleep (Pearce Quigley) lives alone in that crowded house.
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Sleep → live → house
His days generally consist of going to his job at a big-box home center, where he generally BSes customers for his own amusement.
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he → consist → amusement
He and a young cashier named Kacey (Lauren Patel) bond over how silly their wanker of a boss, Gordon (Mackenzie Crook) is.
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wanker → name → boss
He then goes to a senior home to visit his father Brian (Michael Palin), who puts together Rube Goldberg machines.
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who → go → machines
He also has to deal with his neighbor Clive (Jon Pointing), who keeps asking him to trim back his overgrown garden.
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who → have → garden
Michael has been suffering, though, since his girlfriend Clea disappeared seven years prior.
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girlfriend → suffer → ?
Clea’s brother Roy (Paul Kaye) is pretty sure Clea killed herself, but Michael continues to hold out hope.
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Michael → kill → hope
One day, Brian mentions to his son that, during his travels, he found a recipe to grow homunculi, tiny humanoids that are prophets; Brian thinks they can tell Michael about what happened to Clea.
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what → mention → Clea
Michael doesn’t believe his father until he finds Brian’s journal in his shed; clipped inside is a photograph of a homunculus.
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photograph → believe → homunculus
What Shows Will It Remind You Of?
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It → show → You
Small Prophets, created, written, and directed by Mackenzie Crook, has a similar quirky feel to The Big Door Prize.
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Prophets → create → Prize
Our Take: Small Prophets is an addictively pleasant watch, mainly because of its easygoing style and Crook’s ability to write and direct a story that’s quirky without being twee.
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that → write → story
Michael is an odd duck, but one whose oddness is rooted in real-life pain and a hint of delusion.
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oddness → root → delusion
While you’re watching him, you can understand why he might hold out hope that Clea is alive and wants to come back home, and how that’s fueled things like making his living room a Christmastime shrine to her and spending his days telling harmless lies to everyone he encounters.
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he → watch → everyone
What we really enjoyed about the show is how layered it is.
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it → enjoy → show
Michael is going to obsess over growing these homunculi, but he also is growing an unexpected friendship with Kacey, dealing with his father’s encroaching cognitive problems, fending off his obsessed neighbor Clive, and trying to keep Roy from kicking him out of the house.
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he → go → house
Crook addresses a lot of issues in the six episode season, one that people of Michael’s age are dealing with, whether they’re crippled by grief or not.
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they → address → grief
Pearce Quigley is fantastic because he makes Michael weird but relatable, and takes traits that would seem misanthropic, like his elaborate and gleeful lying, and makes them endearing.
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them → make → lying
Quigley and Palin have a great father-son chemistry, as well.
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Quigley → have → chemistry
Michael finds the photo of a homunculus inside his father’s journal, which has the recipe for growing homunculi.
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which → find → homunculi
Small Prophets spends its energy on being endearing and funny, and comes by its quirks organically, which makes it an engaging watch.
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it → spend → quirks
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie.
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he → write → himself
His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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writing → appear → Times
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