By Francesca Scaraggi
Special to The Chronicle
Like any good human being, I have been following the acceptable, if not particularly exciting, season of “Community” produced by Yahoo.
“Sin City Saints” caught my attention when I realized Yahoo had opted out of the season-dump format for “Community.” Episodes for this other thing, “Sin City Saints,” popped up in the sidebar so I figured, why not?
“Sin City Saints” follows a Las Vegas basketball expansion team. I know absolutely nothing about sports, so for all those like me, an expansion team is a brand-new team in a city that did not have a team previously.
The team is owned by Jake Tullis (Andrew Santino) who calls himself “a minority owner” because he’s a ginger. He’s so boring. Like a million other white male characters helming a show, Jake is supposed to be funny because he’s outrageous and offensive, but it just makes him unlikeable.
His female combatant – because a show can’t be average without a barb-trading duo – is Dusty Halford (Malin Akerman), a lawyer for the league. She straddles the line between unlikeable and pitiable. Of course, as the season continues, the characters who are set up as rude are “humanized” as time goes on. I remained unmoved.
The show focuses on a staggering number of characters considering the 20ish-minute time frame. Most characters get too little screen time to really matter to the audience. The most likeable character is clearly the team’s star player, LaDarius Pope (Keith Powers), a total mama’s boy with a romantic streak a mile wide. He puts up with Jake’s obsessively-racialized nicknames (brown sugar, ebony – personally, I think LaDarius should just punch him) and piss-poor advice because, well, he’s naïve? His earnestness is, of course, heightened amongst all the jaded, offensive people around him.
The strength of the show lies in the snappy dialogue when it’s not offensive. Jake and the team mascot (Brendan Jennings) have some pretty good exchanges, like “I don’t trust the rich.” “Andy, you have to trust me, I know the struggle, I grew up middle class,” among others. I started to consistently laugh once I got to episode seven, “Urine God’s Hands Now,” but that could be due to my 3 a.m. viewing time.
There’s a nice balance in episode seven between things like a fake penis for a drug test and a mini-crusade for reproductive rights. Plus, my favorite sidelined character, Melissa Stanton, (B.K. Cannon) gets to shine. Oh, and Rick Fox is in the show. I don’t know about you, but I have a thing for Rick Fox.
Yahoo’s first venture into original content, “Sin City Saints,” has one full eight-episode season out. Each episode comes in at a little over 20 minutes. Binge watch between classes or during that short break when you’re alone at Bits if you feel so inclined. I feel like their 876 Twitter-follower count speaks for itself. Personally, I’m walking away from my viewing bored and vaguely insulted.