Startup Comedy 'Betas' Tries To Be Too Cool With 'Girls'-Type Humor

In the second episode of Amazon's Betas, the main character makes a tongue-in-cheek launch video for the hookup app he's developing. It's to poke fun at the cliched life a blogger accused him of living in a harsh takedown post, but instead it highlights the show's weaknesses: The character, and the show, try very, very hard to be cool.

Betas is Amazon Studios' second original series, which launched Nov. 22, just one week after the political comedy Alpha House from Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau. While Alpha House didn't have quite enough clever punchlines, Betas has too many.