There’s a moment in the pilot of “Blockbuster,” the new Netflix sitcom from “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Superstore” writer Vanessa Ramos, when the staff of the last Blockbuster in the world reaches their hands out, going in for a morale-raising group cheer.
Before they can count down (“‘Blockbuster’ on three!”), jaded employee Eliza (Melissa Fumero) pauses to point out the irony of a once-monopolizing video store chain that put mom-and-pop stores out of business now being positioned as an underdog.
It’s an apt footnote and a rare moment of self-awareness for a series that, despite being quite funny, often has trouble reconciling the odd space it takes up in a late capitalist world.There is, for example, the inherent contradiction of the show’s own premise.
“Blockbuster” sets itself up as a series that’s all about the scrappy fight to keep physical media alive, but it’s streaming exclusively on Netflix, the company that was,
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