Roadies: "The Load Out"

It is 28 August 2016, and time for the season finale of Roadies.

At a memorial concert for Phil (Ron White), the Staton-House Band road crew take stock of their lives and make decisions for the future. Shelli (Carla Gugino) is surprised by the arrival of her long-absent husband Sean (Michael Passmore). The cast learns of the impending break-up of the band. Reg (Rafe Spall) prepares to return to England. Kelly-Ann (Imogen Poots) struggles to comprehend Phil's dying words.

"The Load Out" finishes off Roadies with a combination of plot resolutions, musical performances, and one massively stupid climactic scene. It is certainly an above-average episode for the series, but in many ways it showcases all of the ways in which the series has struggled over the past ten weeks. It is, in effect, Roadies in microcosm: good actors reciting bad scripts, and a lot of potential squandered.

Roadies: "Corporate Gig"

It's 21 August 2016, and time for the penultimate episode of Roadies.

Much to the road crew's chagrin, the Staton-House Band has been booked to play a corporate function for a rich rubber magnate. Shelli (Carla Gugino) returns just it time to get an unexpected offer from Tom Staton (Catero Alain Colbert). Kelly-Ann (Imogen Poots) ponders her life choices after receiving a hard drive of her teenage writing. Reg (Rafe Spall) continues to obsess over his own future, and the fate of the band.

It is frustrating when a television drama fails to come together. I think it is even more frustrating when a television drama does come together, but it does so too late. These last two episodes of Roadies have seen the series finally work out its rhythms and characters, but of course by now it is almost certainly too late for an audience to find it. Showtime have yet to make a formal announcement on the series' future, but for it to receive a second year at this stage - and with declining viewing figures - would be a big surprise.

Roadies: "The All-Night Bus Ride"

It is 14 August 2016, and time for another episode of Roadies.

The road crew spend the night awake and talking during an all-night bus trip. Phil reminisces about his first days as a roadie. Milo (Peter Cambor) regrets not expressing his feelings to Kelly-Ann (Imogen Poots) earlier. Reg (Rafe Spall) makes an unpleasant discovery about why he was hired to join the crew in the first place.

The calibre of talent involved in Roadies means that sooner or later the law of averages is going to result in a half-decent episode. It had happened once already earlier in the season, and it is a huge relief to see it happen again: "The All-Night Bus Ride" is an oddly strong episode whose only significant flaw is that it does not link up so well to the rest of the season. In some respects it is a glimpse into an alternate universe where Roadies does not suck.

Roadies: "Carpet Season"

It is 7 August 2016, and time for another episode of Roadies.

The Staton-House Band tour moves to Seattle. Phil (Ron White) returns to the crew, and joins Bill (Luke Wilson) and Reg (Rafe Spall) on a mission to retrieve stolen property from super-fan Mike Finger. A world-famous rock photographer (Roseanne Arquette) arrives to take a picture of the band, running both Shelli (Carla Gugino) and Kelly-Ann (Imogen Poot) up the wrong way.

The previous episode of Roadies, "Longest Days", marked an unexpected upswing in quality towards something that actually seemed rather good and entertaining. With "Carpet Season" the quality crash right back down again. It forms itself around plot beats that the audience has already seen, and it introduces yet another immediately unlikeable and deeply exaggerated guest character too. One previous episode showcased an arrogant and vain music critic. This episode effectively does the same thing that the earlier episode did to critics, only this time it is rock photographers in the series' sights.

Roadies: "Longest Days"

It is 31 July 2016, and time for another episode of Roadies.

The Staton-House Band prepares for its second Denver concert. Christopher (Tanc Sade) continues to obsess over his ex-girlfriend Janine (Joy Williams), not knowing that Reg (Rafe Spall) is already romancing her behind his back. Bill (Luke Wilson) and Shelli (Carla Cugino) struggle to sustain their status quo after spontaneously having sex. Alcoholic bass player Rick (Christopher Backus) flies in his sobriety sponsor from Los Angeles: comedian Marc Maron (himself).

"Longest Days" is a bit of a surprise: it's a genuinely enjoyable and solid episode of Roadies. I watched the first episode because of its behind-the-scenes talent: Cameron Crowe, J.J. Abrams and Winnie Holzman. I kept watching because I became fixated on how so many talented people could come together to make something so ham-fisted, weakly written and incomprehensibly smug. Now I have hit the sixth episode and suddenly, possibly momentarily, everything seems to click together for a week and create something that's entertaining.

Roadies: "Friends and Family"

It is 24 July 2016, and time for another episode of Roadies.

The Staten-House Band returns to their home town of Denver, Colorado, for two special shows. Immediate complications ensue: Janine, the subject of Christopher House's tortured affections and one of the band's most famous songs, turns up to watch the concert. Kelly-Ann (Imogen Poots) struggles with the rumour that she and Reg (Rafe Spall) are a romantic item. Shelli (Carla Gugino) is desperate for sex with no one to have it with. Bill (Luke Wilson) is inspired to finally make amends to his ex-wife Lorraine.

This episode brings big changes for the lives of several regular characters, but because these characters have been developed so stereotypically and thinly it is difficult to actually feel any sort of emotional effect. What's more, the time spent pushing those particular hamster wheels in circles prevents the episode from spending more time on the characters that do work.

Roadies: "The City Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken"

It is 17 July 2016, and time for another episode of Roadies.

It is time for a much-needed day off for the roadies of the Staten-House Band, but when Reg (Rafe Spall) says the name of a cursed city on the tour bus everyone's day is immediately devoted to breaking the curse before it ruins the tour. Meanwhile the band's bass player goes missing, sending Bill (Luke Wilson) and Shelli (Carla Gugino) on a road trip to find him.

So this is the fourth episode of Roadies, the 2016 TV drama so weirdly awful that I simply have not been able to look away. Every week I am dragged back by its gravity of predictable characters, well-worn stereotypes, and bizarrely gargantuan smugness, just so that I can get flummoxed by how it got to be so hopelessly awful all over again. This episode is not an improvement. It is perhaps a slightly different kind of awful to earlier episodes, but awful it remains. I will be stunned if this series gets a second season.

Roadies: "The Bryce Newman Letter"

It is 10 July 2016, and time for the third episode of Roadies.

When the caustic music critic Bryce Newman (Rainn Wilson) evicerates the current Staten-House Band tour, Reg (Rafe Spall) decides to invite Bryce to their first Atlanta concert. The attempt to curry favour goes awry when Wes (Colson Baker) spikes Newman's coffee with hallucinogenic mushrooms.

It is not a surprise to see Roadies introduce a straw-man snooty critic upon whom Cameron Crowe can unload all of his resentment and aggression. It is a common thing for put-upon and widely criticised filmmakers to introduce into their films or TV shows. The poster child for this kind of behaviour is almost certainly M. Night Shyamalan, who not only parodied an arrogant film critic in his film The Lady in the Water but had him eaten by wolves as well. Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich sneaked a cruel parody of Roger Ebert into their 1997 Godzilla remake. George Lucas named his evil henchman in Willow after Pauline Kael.

Roadies: "What Would Phil Do?"

It is 3 July 2016, and time for the second episode of Roadies.

As Reg (Rafe Spall) makes budget cuts on the tour and fires multiple members of the road crew, team morale drops to a new low. Despite coming back to work Kelly Ann (Imogen Poots) finds her colleagues are not so quick to forgive her. In Phil's absence Bill (Luke Wilson) suffers a crisis of confidence in doing his job.

There is clearly something worthwhile in Roadies, because despite the first episode being jarringly awful I have found myself back watching the second episode. It is almost as bad, although to its credit it is a little more grounded and believable. I think this may be what I have seen others refer to as 'car crash television': it's awful, yet for some reason it's impossible turn away from the carnage on screen.

Roadies: "Life is a Carnival"

It is 26 June 2016, and time for the debut episode of Roadies.

The popular Staton-House Band rolls into New Orleans for a stadium concert, and their road crew - known as "Roadies" make preparations for the evening's event. Tour manager Bill (Luke Wilson) has slept with the producer's 22 year-old daughter, rigger Kelly-Ann (Imogen Poots) is preparing to quit to go to film school in New York, production manager Shelli (Carla Gugino) stresses over whether to stay or join her husband on a Taylor Swift tour, and a groupie with a restraining order is loose backstage.

Roadies is a new lighthearted drama series (I kind of loathe the term 'dramedy') from writer/director Cameron Crowe. He brings with him an awful lot of cultural cache: at the age of 16 he went on the road with the Allman Brothers Band and sold the story to Rolling Stone magazine. He subsequently became one of the magazine's contributing editors. As a feature film writer and director he gave the world Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous. His films are renowned for their extensive and informed use of popular music in their soundtracks. Put simply: if one wanted to make a television drama about life backstage with a stadium rock band, Cameron Crowe is likely the first creative to whom you would speak.