Absurdist humor is a particularly difficult sub-genre of comedy to nail. It demands every member of a show’s creative team to walk a razor thin line of “too much” and “not enough” when it comes to the jokes themselves as well as requires the audience to be patient and mindful of long-running, more complicated gags. Even so, the payoff is usually twice as sweet, and few modern TV series exemplify absurdist humor done right than Arrested Development. Originally conceived of as a sitcom that satirized both reality TV and the corporate accounting scandals of the early aughts, the original three-season run of Arrested Development on Fox not only won six Primetime Emmys, but its cult following also inspired a two season revival nearly ten years later at Netflix.
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If you’ve finished your latest rewatch of Arrested Development and are looking for a similar style show, look no further than The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. The series stars two members of Arrested Development‘s notorious Bluth family, David Cross who played Tobias Funkë, the eccentric husband of Lindsay Bluth; and Will Arnett, the actor who brought the narcissistic magician Gob Bluth to life on the show. Todd Margaret reunites the two actors, this time as boss and employee instead of in-laws, as well as makes them both fish out of water with the show’s London setting.
In addition to creating The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, Cross plays the titular character, a pathological liar and American office temp worker. When ultra-aggressive executive Brent Wilts (Arnett) overhears Margaret reciting a self-help CD and confuses it with him being on a customer call, Wilts promotes him to a leadership position, where Margaret is put in charge of selling a ridiculously named energy drink, “Thunder Muscle,” to the UK market in London. Margaret’s new post only has one other employee, the eager but scheming Dave (Blake Harrison). The series also boasts a strong comedic supporting cast, Sharon Horgan (Bad Sisters, Catastrophe) plays Alice, the object of Margaret’s misguided infatuation, Mad Men star Jon Hamm plays a version of himself, and Amber Tamblyn (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), Cross’s real-life spouse plays another of Margaret’s misbegotten love interests on the show.
Todd Margaret Pairs Arrested Development’s Humor and Stars with a New Hilarious Setting
Todd Margaret is a must-watch for any fans of absurdist, satirical comedies like Arrested Development. It captures the same bizarre but hilarious humor that made Arrested Development so beloved, in this case parodying corporate ladder-climbing rather than a “riches to rags” saga. And no matter how wild and wacky the situations become on Todd Margaret (and they do get wild and wacky — Margaret gets entangled with both the House of Lords and the North Korean dictatorship) the show’s anchored in minute, laugh-out-loud situational comedy. One memorable scene is when Margaret accidentally finds himself on a tour of the Houses of Parliament intended for deaf people, and the series is rife with Dave giving him incorrect advice on British customs in order to humiliate Margaret.
Similar to Arrested Development, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret had a three-season run from 2010 to 2016 — though there was a four year break in between Seasons 2 and 3 of the show. With its whip smart humor and stacked cast, it’s surprising that the series wasn’t more widely embraced when it premiered on IFC. Yet now the first two seasons of Todd Margaret are streaming free on Tubi. Each season contains six-episodes all clocking in at just under half an hour, making it a perfect bingeable series for any lovers of absurdist humor.
Seasons 1 and 2 of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret are currently streaming on Tubi.
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