Santa Clarita Diet: Season One
February 8, 2017 6:49 AM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe

Drew Barrymore stars as a realtor with unusual appetites. Timothy Olyphant co-stars as her husband with unusual hair coloring. Ten episodes, streaming on Netflix.
posted by Etrigan (31 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm about halfway through, and so far I'm really loving this. At least once an episode I laugh loud enough to scare my cat, so its got to be good. My only complaint is that the acting by the leads seems a bit stiff, hopefully they will loosen up some over time. Maybe its just that I'm so used to Olyphant as Raylan Givens and this character is about as different from that as you can get.
posted by InfidelZombie at 10:59 AM on February 8, 2017


I done binged all of this in two days and I love it. Barrymore & Olyphant are perfect. I think they're intentionally written and performed as a little stiff to play up the comedy of "normal suburbanites" trying to deal with the situation the way that they are - up to now their lives have been all about acting chipper to sell houses and maintaining "friendly-but-not-too-friendly" relationships with their neighbors. Now they're dealing with something truly weird and dangerous and chit-chat about the PTA meeting seems silly, but they've spent so long in that kind of a rut that they're having trouble jumping out, plus they need to keep up appearances. It's almost Lynchian.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:18 AM on February 8, 2017 [10 favorites]


my husband and I watched the first episode while eating tacos.

Yeah . . . . . . not your best idea . . . . . .

Although there really isn't much (if any) content warning, so I can't say I was expecting it either.

So, warning for the squeamish - they do NOT skimp on the gore.
posted by soundguy99 at 12:59 PM on February 8, 2017


Here's a special BodyBreak Demo about the Santa Clarita diet.

(Does this even play outside of Canada? I mean, I know the link works, but does it play?)
posted by ODiV at 2:22 PM on February 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


Finished it today (slow day at work).

I feel like this is what BrainDead wanted to be but couldn't get away with on network TV. They really did never let up on the gore, god bless 'em.

They're clearly setting up for S2, and I'll be waiting with bated breath.
posted by Etrigan at 9:52 AM on February 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


We watched it all in two nights, and I have no idea how I feel about it.
posted by Night_owl at 10:26 PM on February 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Question, I love iZombie, will I like this ?
posted by Pendragon at 11:05 AM on February 11, 2017


I also love iZombie and I love this, but this and iZombie aren't very similar. This is much more like Weeds than it is like iZombie.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:19 AM on February 11, 2017 [1 favorite]


I agree: the two shows are very different.

I love iZombie and I feel like I should have loved this, and question why I didn't. Like, was I just in a crappy mood the day I binged it, or what? I could see and appreciate the humor, but just wasn't laughing along with it for the most part. (I did binge-watch it, though, so.)
posted by moira at 3:10 PM on February 11, 2017


Well, I just watched the first episode and I liked it :-) Going to binge the rest on sunday.
posted by Pendragon at 3:27 PM on February 11, 2017


I like iZombie, but adore Santa Clarita Diet, so I can definitely see why there may not be as much overlap as one would expect. I think for me the family dynamics are more compelling than the impending end of the world/mystery of the week combo (again, just personal preference).
posted by ghost phoneme at 4:11 PM on February 11, 2017


I think how much you enjoy it depends on your Drew Barrymore tolerance level.
posted by fshgrl at 11:20 PM on February 12, 2017


we watched the first two episodes and noped on out. its...I dont know it didnt work for me. the script is stilted and the acting too stiff (I really like both lead actors a lot too) and the gore so over-the-top ick (I hate puke/puking). meh.
posted by supermedusa at 5:26 PM on February 14, 2017


Oh, this has puking in it? Damn. I was hoping to find a new series to watch with my partner...who is an emetophobe.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:27 PM on February 14, 2017


There are two episodes with puking, as I recall, and they are not very realistic, but as one character puts it, each is "an insane amount of vomit".
posted by Etrigan at 3:25 AM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


It's not realistic, but it squicked me out a bit (I'm not especially emetophobic, I just don't like looking at it). Nothing really important happens in those scenes and they're easy to zoom through, so you could scope it out and figure out when to have your partner close their eyes while you zoom through it if you guys were really interested. I'm pretty sure the scenes are in episode 1 (beginningish) and episode 5 (just the end, I think), with 5 being more of the results than the whole process.

There are some points where Sheila chokes stuff up, though, in case that's problematic for your partner.
posted by ghost phoneme at 7:31 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


the script is stilted and the acting too stiff (I really like both lead actors a lot too)

I think that the stiltedness and the stiffness are intentional, to play into the overall theme of "Keeping up appearances despite things going totally off the fucking rails". I noticed it much, much less as the season went on (but I admit that may just be that I got used to it, rather than it actually lessening).
posted by Etrigan at 7:35 AM on February 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


Also the sort of people Sheila and Joel are lends itself to stiffness in portrayal.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:07 AM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


I pretty much loved it. And I'm a big fan of iZombie. Different kinds of humor. iZombie is Rob Thomas, so it's got that (Veronica Mars) vibe. SCD is different and hits hard on the absurdist humor.

And I really like absurdist humor, so this worked very well for me. I did find that some episodes were better than others. Episode 5 really sold me on the show -- I was laughing out loud to the point of coughing through most of it. I think all three of the leads have great comedic skills. Probably Barrymore is the least impressive, but that's only because Olyphant and Hewson are fantastic. I'm especially impressed with Hewson in that I think that the show would not be nearly as good without the good writing and acting for that character.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 8:31 PM on February 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


So glad to see a Victor Fresco series back on the air. Better Off Ted is one of my all-time favourite shows.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 1:30 AM on February 19, 2017


Thanks for the intel, folks. I've just reviewed the first episode and it seems a good show but too risky for my gf, unfortunately (since I'm the one in charge of the remote and am therefore the one who will get in trouble :P).
posted by turbid dahlia at 11:54 PM on February 20, 2017


I binged on this over the long weekend, and I rarely binge. It was like a bag of delicious candies that you can't stop yourself from finishing all at once. Soooo funny! And, as others have noted, not really much like iZombie, which frequently tries to scare and horrify. My only disappointment was the almost complete lack of resolution at the end of the season. Does anyone here know if there's a commitment for a second season, and if so, when?
posted by ubiquity at 7:45 AM on February 22, 2017


As far as I can find, there's nothing official about a second season, but IMO Netflix shows have been pretty good about resolving story arcs if further seasons are iffy. They don't seem to cliffhanger unless they know another season is on the way, and for shows that might or might not continue they conclude the main story while still leaving some minor dangling plot points that can be picked up in the future. So given the ending I feel pretty confident at least one more season is likely.
posted by soundguy99 at 5:50 AM on February 23, 2017


turbid dahlia this is a couple days late, but the first episode is way more gross than those that follow. Like the first episode sets up the whole zombie thing and has a looot of gore and vomit, but in later episodes I felt like it was just a regular family drama with a backdrop of cannibalism. There is some violence in later episodes, but nothing as icky as the first.

Anyway I watched the whole season in basically one sitting. It pretty much hit the sweet spot of like an Ash vs Evil Dead / Raising Hope mashup, which yeah, is basically exactly what I want in my life.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:25 AM on February 25, 2017


It turns out that there’s no YouTube video of an octopus and a kitten falling in love and now I’m devastated.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:10 PM on February 28, 2017 [7 favorites]


Santa Clarita Diet the 10th most viewed original series in Netflix history, with 10M views in the first 35 days.
posted by Etrigan at 7:28 AM on March 14, 2017


How many Netflix originals have there been?
posted by Going To Maine at 8:50 AM on March 14, 2017


Counting each season as a separate series (as that chart appears to have done) and not counting kids shows, more than 50.
posted by Etrigan at 8:57 AM on March 14, 2017 [1 favorite]


Netflix picks up season 2.
posted by Etrigan at 8:37 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


We are slowly consuming this show in tiny spurts, but dear god I love it. It's funny, like that laughter that takes you by surprise kind of funny and I had forgotten just how very much I loved hearing Timothy Olyphant say "Motherfucker." It's like I'm whole again.
posted by teleri025 at 9:15 AM on March 29, 2017 [2 favorites]


We got through the first episode but I think it's a hard pass from us. Did not like it. About 10 minutes in I said "No one talks like this..." and it didn't get better.
posted by Catblack at 3:54 PM on January 19, 2019


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