The only school reunion "after party" I have ever been to was a boorish drunken fest. Since then I refused to attend school reunions of any sort. And this new series proves why. But at least The Afterparty is more entertaining. The creator and director, Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump St), borrows from classics to tell this story of an after party death at a school reunion, where all the attendees are suspects. Each episode deals with a party-goer's outrageous perspective, allowing the episodes to take on different genres and styles to suite the ego driven stories. To the point where Episode 3 was a hilarious musical of some sort! For the film buffs, Miller has borrowed from movies such as Akira Kurosawa's 1950 Japanese classic, RASHOMON, set in samurai times where a murder is committed and each witness recounts their version of events. Then throw in, John Hughes' Breakfast Club (1985), that showed the diversity of school students who all feel the same pain, but deal with it in different manners. To me it felt as if those Breakfast Club kids grew up and attended this party! Then to top it all off, throw in some Agatha Christie's delicious murder mystery novels, mostly the Hercule Poirot kind (that Kenneth Branagh has resurrected with Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile). In this series, Detective Danner wishes she was a Hercule Poirot, and in a bumbling sort of way is slowly breaking through the cracks in the case (or is she?). The comedy aspect reminds me of Neil Simon's mystery spoof, Murder By Death (1976). Minor detail, but worth putting it out there. With all these ingredients, Miller comes up with entertainment-of-the-silly-kind where the actors are having the time of their lives just hamming it up for our pleasure of some sort. Along the way there are some interesting issues brought up, dealing with shattered childhood career dreams, bullying, jealousy, and other horrible emotions from school that some carry for the rest of their lives. Hopefully The Afterparty will resovle those issues for our enjoyment!

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