Overcompensating Adults
There’s been an influx of new shows geared towards Gen-Z and Millennials, and the splashiest of these arrivals are Overcompensating on Prime and Adults on Hulu/Disney+. Overcompensating was written and created by Benito Skinner, who plays himself in the show, as it’s based on his coming-out-story during his freshman year of college. Adults is about five early 20-somethings living in “New York” (it was very obviously filmed in Toronto) and daily adventures as they navigate adulthood. I think because these two shows specifically were released within a week of each other and share Owen Thiele in cast, there’s been a lot of comparison that I thought would be fun to explore. I chose four relevant sections that felt like fair foundations for comparison: acting, storyline, pacing and soundtrack. Would love to know your thoughts if you’ve watched these shows, or if you’re dying on the hill of not watching, I’d love to hear why!
*spoiler free*
Acting: The acting in Overcompensating was pretty hit and miss for me. I think the character Hailee was the most believable as a character (and I’m not just saying that because she was my favorite and so deeply hilarious). I think because the show is supposed to be a campy interpretation of college for Millennials, of which Benny is one, there were times I felt I relied too much on the “campy” aspect in order to sweep aside subpar acting. In Adults, I found everyone was kind of on the same acting plane, so there weren’t any standouts necessarily but that doesn’t mean the bar was set super high. Performances felt relatively stable across characters.
Storyline: The Overcompensating story, as previously mentioned, is based on Benny’s real life. To what degree aspects of it are embellished, I’m not sure, but I’ll confidently assume that Charli xcx didn’t perform his freshman year of college. I think the plot being a personal story automatically makes me more inclined to like it, and I thought it balanced raunchy humor with intimate, emotional moments. I was thoroughly entertained. Adults is in classic sitcom format, which means very few plot points carry over from one episode to the next. Each episode is a new journey, and occasionally a detail will carry over to the next episode which highlights its importance. I do have some questions about Samir’s plot in the “Pilot” episode because from my perspective, which aligns with other opinions I’ve also seen online, I’m confused about the tone and intended perspective (would love to hear thoughts on this). Overall, it’s like dumb humor and intentionally dramatic in a way I found really funny and relatable.
Pacing: The storyline pacing in Overcompensating felt relatively natural, and anything that didn’t make sense was probably because there were only so few episodes to squish content into. However, I think the dialogue pacing of the show was very off at times. Sometimes there would be space after a joke or bit that felt a little too long, or music would suddenly cut into a scene and disrupt the flow (talked about more in soundtrack section). In Adults, I think storyline pacing is less relevant because it’s a sitcom, so there’s not necessarily a throughline. However, dialogue pacing is very important in a sitcom, and I think the show did a pretty good job. I think within the main cast, the pacing felt more natural than in scenes with side characters, but there weren’t too many points where a scene felt strange because of bad pacing.
Soundtrack: I didn’t love the soundtrack for Overcompensating. This might be controversial because I believe Charli did the soundtrack, but it has less to do with song selection and more so with the songs alongside dialogue. The pacing of the dialogue and soundtrack didn’t make sense to me a lot of the time, and I felt like songs would come in suddenly on 100 volume and completely mess with the vibe rather than aid in setting it. I also felt like sometimes songs were included just because they could be? Like it was hard to get the rights to some of the more iconic songs, so it was included in the scene as more of “Look, we got this song cleared” and less because it made sense with the scene. In Adults, I’m not going to lie, I don’t remember the soundtrack being necessarily memorable besides the first and last episodes. I think it’s partially because I sped through the show (episodes are short and I was antsy to get to each next episode), but also because with sitcoms, I personally don’t think the soundtrack doesn’t need to be groundbreaking.
Overall, I’d recommend both shows! I cackled during both. Overcompensating was definitely more emotional for obvious reasons, and Adults felt more relatable, also for obvious reasons. I plan on rewatching both, because I watched them so fast the first time. I hate when I get hooked on a show and then binge watch because it makes me feel like I ate my food too fast and then I don't remember what it tasted like. I need shows to force feed me an episode a week, but that’s a discussion for another day. I think on initial watch I enjoyed Overcompensating more, but I see myself revisiting Adults more often in the future. My biggest qualm with both of these shows is that they’re too short! 8 episodes never has and never will satiate an audience, and I really wish streaming platforms would get that through their thick skulls. Praying that both shows get renewed and possibly for this to usher in a new golden age of young adult TV shows, but maybe I’m asking for too much…
