The Buzz: ‘StartUp’ The Drama Downfall
Overdone dramatic elements can, and will, ruin a TV series. When something is overdone and is used repetitively no matter how exciting it is, it becomes boring. Unfortunately, StartUp is guilty of doing this. In the series, characters go through a similar character arch’s each season, intense dramatic scenes are reused and monologuing dialogue is all elements that become overdone in the series. Outside of these elements, the series has a very interesting concept of looking at the dark side of the Internet and the tech industry itself.
The show is set in Miami, Florida, and follows three major characters who all come together to start a company based on Cryptocurrency. Izzy Morales (Otmara Marrero) is a tech-savvy creator who has been working the past few years on her passion project “GenCoin”, a new cryptocurrency that works by storing coins on any cell phone. Nick Talman (Adam Brody) hears her business pitch and decides to fund her idea and mistakenly funds it with money that belongs to Ronald Dacey (Edi Gathegi) a leader of a Haitian gang. When Ronald finds that his money has been stolen, he finds Nick and almost kills him. However, when he finds out what it is for, he decides to simply ask for his money back. After Ronald thinks about what the money is for and sees an opportunity to move out of his violent gang life, he decides to officially become an investor in GenCoin. The series follows these three main characters as they go over hurdles to try and make GenCoin the new and most popular form of not just cryptocurrency, but the world's newest currency. Along the way people try to stop them, ranging from a corrupt FBI Agent Phil Rask (Martin Freeman), to Russian gangsters. Their greatest enemy, of course, is themselves and whether or not they can work together to become the greatest tech company behind a new cryptocurrency.
The show is created by Ben Ketai, who is also the main writer and director of 16 episodes out of 30 shows. There are other directors that work on a few episodes but Ketai is the main creative force. The way he writes about the tech world and how new and complicated everything is behind the scenes is a major draw for the series. The show is especially relevant because of the new cryptocurrency craze.
The show originally was produced and released for and on Crackle in 2016. The show then ran for two more seasons with the final season being released in 2018. On May 4th, 2021, StartUp was released on Netflix where it hit the top ten on Netflix in the United States that month (not an easy feat for an older show). Since the show has not been renewed by Crackle in three years, it begs the question of Netflix will pick up the show for a fourth season. The demand seems there with its top ten spots and the series is much more relevant today than it was when it first came out in 2016 with cryptocurrency being traded by 13% of Americans in early 2021. Being ahead of its time, StartUp knows what it is talking about and brings up interesting concepts in the series.
The Internet is one of, if not the most, influential inventions of the 20th century and has shaped the world today. The internet is made public on April 30th, 1993 makes it a relatively new invention in human history. Many films or TV shows either stray away from incorporating it into their content by creating period pieces or half-heartedly put it into context with the diegetic intertitles that appear on screen to show what someone is texting over a phone. Something that is rarely talked about is the darker side of the Internet. Like any large entity, there is room for corruption and people to use the Internet for their own personal gain. As a concept, StartUp understands that there is something to show to a mainstream audience about how the Internet is the new frontier and, with that, there are people trying to take advantage of it and use it for personal gain. Without this perspective of the “dark side”, StartUp would not be as interesting to watch as it is. Supporting this darker element is well-written dialogue, one of the many complicated highlights of the show.
The dialogue written for StartUp is exceptionally well done. It is dramatic, punchy, and goes into short monologues that really let each major character speak their peace about something that they genuinely care about. For example, a character that does not come into the show until the second season, Wes Chandler (Ron Perlman), clearly expresses emotion. When he is upset about something, every character on screen knows it. This is done through well-written dialogue, which is delivered masterfully by Perlman. While the dialogue is good, it drives the entire showdown because there are at least 2-3 dramatic monologues per episode. This stops the series from becoming entertaining to watch and turns it into something boring. The actors handle the lines well and the performances are incredible, but it is the perfect example of too much of a good thing. There needed to be a mix of moods or different/creative ways to express how a character feels instead of having them talk about why they feel a certain way. The well-written dialogue is a small piece of a much larger problem. The show incessantly tries to create drama in any way possible, which in turn makes StartUp a dull viewing experience.
Each episode runs for about 40 minutes excluding the show's recap, intro, and end credits. That being said, they could all be about ten to fifteen minutes shorter due to the unnecessary fluff that adds nothing to an episode. This includes characters waking up in the morning and taking time to get up, a character going to use the bathroom, or a character drinking coffee looking out the window. A case could be made that it is there to add mood to the series, but these tasks are so monotonous and overdone that it becomes evident that they are there to extend the episode running time. The dramatic elements that fill out the other twenty-five to thirty minutes of the show are worth watching and make everything exciting to watch.
When the show isn’t wasting time on long monologues or monotonous scenes, there are bits of excitement and drama when something goes wrong. The characters who are fleshed out react as the world around them begins to crumble. This can be seen when they are being hacked, they get shot at, or when a character is being intimidated by a gangster. These more intense scenes really put the viewer on the edge of their seats, but again it becomes overdone in the show. In each season, there is a hacking scene that is intense to watch or multiple gunfights usually centered on the Russian gangsters out to get them. There is no variety to these intense scenes, they just happen in a different way each season. Any show attempts to stay fresh from episode to episode and StartUp just can't help but fall into the same dramatic moments again and again. This doesn’t help that the character arcs repeat themselves too.
On top of the repetitive dramatic nature of the series, the characters themselves have the same problems as well as the same resolution in each season. In season one, Nick Tallman tries to stay with his long-term girlfriend after she loses trust in him. In season three, he tries to get his new girlfriend to stay with him but she begins to not trust him. Ronald Dacey has to choose between prioritizing his Haitian gang life with the company in each season. He tries to leave the gang, but he is drawn back into that side of his life.
Izzy Morales is incredibly bright but she cannot help but prioritize her online inventions over human relationships. In any season, she builds a human connection with someone but breaks it off when it interferes with her work. In each season, these characters face a problem unique to them and by the end of the season, they find a resolution and that is their arc. Then, in the next season, they face the same problem and find the same resolution. It is a constant loop of problem and resolution. It is a case of lazy writing and steals away the characters being written to have any development or growth. The only time where these problems don’t outweigh the enjoyability of the show is in season three.
The third season of StartUp is probably the most entertaining and well put together. It faces the same problems as the earlier seasons and still goes through the character arc repetition, but the dramatic scenes punch harder because it feels like there is much more at stake. Without spoilers, the company itself is in a place where it cannot fail and they are struggling to keep it afloat. The new main antagonist in the season is Rebecca Stroud (Mira Sorvino) who is an NSA agent that is well written and downright terrifying in the show. The repercussions of their business dealings also affect not just them, but thousands of people around the world. With the stakes raised, the third season is definitely the most entertaining to watch.
Overall, the show does repeat itself with dramatic moments and the character arcs are the same from season to season. What makes the show stand out is the subject matter, which looks at the darker side of both the Internet and starting a tech company. The show can be enjoyable at times, especially in the third season where things become much more high-risk. With more work on the writing in the first two seasons, it could have been a much better show and would have been Crackle's next best thing but it just blends with other mediocre television. Though it has become popular in recent times, it has a lot more to prove if it is picked up by Netflix for a fourth season. In 2021, there is a collective American interest in cryptocurrency, and overdone elements aside, it has the foundation with the past three seasons to build an interesting television series about the ins and outs of cryptocurrency. Time will tell if there is a fourth season, but better writing is not only needed but necessary.