Jocelyn Prescod/Netflix
The 2000s were an especially tough decade to be a comedian. An increasing push to digital media meant there were more opportunities for up-and-coming comics, but it was less likely that they’d be a successful showcase for anyone’s talent. Comedians had to claw their way for airtime on talking-head clip shows and 10-minute spots on Comedy Central just to get a lick of recognition and stability. If they were lucky, they made it past the audition round of NBC’s Last Comic Standing, and even then, the winner was guaranteed about as much fame and stardom as a winner of The Voice would be today (which is to say: almost none).
Times were tough, no doubt. But comedian and actor Michelle Buteau was there for all of it, climbing the ranks to establish her sharp, observant voice. After years of growing her brand—becoming a staple of talk shows, podcasts, and the host of Netflix’s dating show The Circle—Buteau published her first book, Survival of the Thickest, a collection of essays about her winding road through the aughts to stardom.
Three years later, Buteau arrives with her first proper leading role in a Netflix show that’s loosely adapted from her book. In Survival of the Thickest, whose first season drops on the platform July 13, Buteau stars as Mavis Beaumont. She’s a newly single, novice stylist trying to navigate career, friendships, and family in New York City. If that sounds a bit conventional, it’s because it is. Despite Buteau’s incisive wit and confident performance as a version of herself, Survival of the Thickest falls back on the pillowy comforts of old sitcom tropes, with few efforts to update them for a new era. Its formulaic comedy squanders Buteau’s inherent magnetism by playing it too safe for streaming, but among its abundance of underbaked ideas is a spark that could catch fire outside the confines of Netflix.