The new season maintains the show’s essence in a prime Sunday time slot, although its storytelling risks don’t always pay off.
Time slots still hold some currency in the streaming era, and never more so than on HBO. The network takes chances on experimental content, but tends to premiere its more out-there offerings on non-Sunday nights. Now, we’re seeing the once-risky “High Maintenance” receive the Season 3 coronation of a Sunday-night premiere, right after the Judd Apatow-produced “Crashing.” This approbation only confirms what fans have known since its Vimeo days: “High Maintenance” is a brilliant show, even when its risks don’t highlight the show’s strengths.
Watching Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld’s creation shift from its origins as a web series to a grown-up half-hour comedy has been fascinating. (This critic humbly admits writing that any sort of transfer from the web to television felt like a bad idea.) The only character in every episode is a pot dealer (Sinclair), known as The Guy; he serves as the entry point to a quasi-anthology series that concentrates on his customers, highlighting a diverse range of lifestyles and cultures.
