Inspired by the reality of the past, Documentary Now! provides a fresh take on parodies.

The style of the show is filmed as if the episodes were reality. Documentary Now!’s humor comes from how the situations detailed in the show are made to look real and not fictional.

The show’s opening credits are of other real documentaries, and the ending credits are for the documentary the episode is based on and not the actual people involved with the show.

Each episode is about a completely different topic than the last.

From political campaign managers to a man who knows a restaurant that serves nothing but rice, bananas, and chicken, Documentary Now!’s subject matter contains a wide variety.

Most of the second season is well-written with fast-paced story lines, but the first episode and the third episode dragged on.

Unless politics, specifically political campaigns, interest you greatly, the first episode was dry up until the end where the final punch line came in. With the ending, the rest of the episode is humorous, but before that it is slightly boring.

The third episode, “Parker Gail’s Location is Everything”, was either so funny that I was oblivious to the humor or it was completely boring. I like to think it was the latter.

This episode, which was about a play based on a memoir, was so confusing that I did not finish it. It seemed dry, and I could not wait around for the ending to come.

A standout episode for this season was “Juan Likes Rice & Chicken”. Unlike the others of the second season this episode had a more heartwarming ending than most.

“Mr. Runner Up: My Life as an Oscar Bridesmaid”, a story about a director’s life journey to achieve an Oscar award, was another standout for the season. Comprised of two parts, the episode serves laughs through making fun of the movie industry back in the 1950s and 1960s.

Overall, the second season was humorous. Each episode carried a different type of humor with it, even though the overarching humor on Documentary Now! is the parodies of actual documentaries.