Corporate

There are a lot of funny things about offices, and this series finds them all: flickering fluorescent lights, logo'd mugs, coworkers who lecture you over the difference between cc'ing or bcc'ing each other. "Does it ever bother you that the corporation we work for is evil?" dead-eyed Matt asks the more optimistic (or perhaps just more resigned) Jake. "Every corporation's evil," shrugs Jake. "We at least get health benefits." Every corporation may be evil, but most don't have a cartoonish villain at the helm -- and Lance Reddick is a gas to watch as he blithely sells junk guns to the CIA, introduces a tablet that's six times the size of an iPad, or plans to decimate the United States with a "hurricane machine."

Meanwhile, Kate and John swan around the office looking for new ways to break Matt's spirit. Upon hearing that Matt's anxiety makes it difficult for him to sleep, John asks "If you can't manage your emotions, Matt, what makes you think you can manage people?" Too harsh? Au contraire, as John and Kate point out, Christian DeVille encourages "confrontational criticism" to the point where there's a motivational poster about it hanging above the cubicles. Hopefully, viewers of Corporate don't work in a place as soul-deadening as Hampton DeVille, but you'll recognize the drab walls, the gray carpet, the co-worker who crashes parties to score free cake -- and this sharp show will make you laugh way harder than "Dilbert" ever could.