It started well and was original, pulling off a conceit which might well have been thought impossible to pull off. I looked forward to the second series and even the third (and even the fourth). But I have to report that in the fourth, Barry just lost it, lost its way, lost everything.
The first season would have got an 8/10, the second 7/10, but overall - well, it's a real dilemma. I'll be generous: 6/10. But that is for overall. For all its misfiring in many directions season four would get no more than a 4/10. And that is generous.
What went wrong? I suspect success did for Barry. I read somewhere that Alex Berg, Bill Hader's writing partner - Hader also starred in Barry and directed many of the episodes, most of the fourth season, in fact - asked Hader whether he thought it would be possible to write a comedy about a murderer.
'Yes,' Hader said he had replied, 'if I star in it.'
Well, in the first season, Berg and Hader did pull it off, against all possible odds. Even the cold-blooded murders we were shown were somehow not at all shocking.
So the series was renewed and Berg and Hader pulled it off again in the second. Another renewal, but by then the 'conceit was wearing thin, storylines became forced and the 'humour' was far less on show.
Then came the fourth season and it was obvious Barry had gone two season too far. I have no idea how much Berg was involved by this point, but the writers had so obviously run out of ideas and could no longer stretch the central conceit any further.
The solution was to wrap up the story, somehow, but it is obvious to me they simply could not find a way.
Almost all of the fourth season completely lacked any resemblance to the first two seasons, except for the main characters. It made no sense, not even in the 'nonsensical' way it had previously managed.
It even struck me that Hader had decided to make the show 'serious'. Fair enough, but why? Such a development would have had to have been organic. As it was it was somehow grafted on to the body of work. And, to use that word again, it did not work, not at all, not in the slightest.
Oh well. If anyone is reading this review and hasn't seen any of Barry, my advice is watch the first two seasons, enjoy them and then walk away. I wish I had.
Mention should got to Hader as the central character, Sarah Goldberg, Henry Winkler and Stephen Root. All are excellent in the first two seasons and do their very best - as I say against the odds in season three and four.
Shame about it all, really, but there you go.
The first season would have got an 8/10, the second 7/10, but overall - well, it's a real dilemma. I'll be generous: 6/10. But that is for overall. For all its misfiring in many directions season four would get no more than a 4/10. And that is generous.
What went wrong? I suspect success did for Barry. I read somewhere that Alex Berg, Bill Hader's writing partner - Hader also starred in Barry and directed many of the episodes, most of the fourth season, in fact - asked Hader whether he thought it would be possible to write a comedy about a murderer.
'Yes,' Hader said he had replied, 'if I star in it.'
Well, in the first season, Berg and Hader did pull it off, against all possible odds. Even the cold-blooded murders we were shown were somehow not at all shocking.
So the series was renewed and Berg and Hader pulled it off again in the second. Another renewal, but by then the 'conceit was wearing thin, storylines became forced and the 'humour' was far less on show.
Then came the fourth season and it was obvious Barry had gone two season too far. I have no idea how much Berg was involved by this point, but the writers had so obviously run out of ideas and could no longer stretch the central conceit any further.
The solution was to wrap up the story, somehow, but it is obvious to me they simply could not find a way.
Almost all of the fourth season completely lacked any resemblance to the first two seasons, except for the main characters. It made no sense, not even in the 'nonsensical' way it had previously managed.
It even struck me that Hader had decided to make the show 'serious'. Fair enough, but why? Such a development would have had to have been organic. As it was it was somehow grafted on to the body of work. And, to use that word again, it did not work, not at all, not in the slightest.
Oh well. If anyone is reading this review and hasn't seen any of Barry, my advice is watch the first two seasons, enjoy them and then walk away. I wish I had.
Mention should got to Hader as the central character, Sarah Goldberg, Henry Winkler and Stephen Root. All are excellent in the first two seasons and do their very best - as I say against the odds in season three and four.
Shame about it all, really, but there you go.