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Crackle’s latest original drama, StartUp, is focused on a beguiling visionary. Cuban-American tech whiz Izzy (Otmara Marrero) has devoted her scrappy existence to creating “GenCoin,” a smarter, safer type of BitCoin. It’s an idea she says will change the world. All she needs is someone to believe in her and to give her money to get it off the ground.
In a way, StartUp is in the same position as its heroine. It’s a show with ambition: the drive to make it in the age of peak TV and to become Crackle’s game-changing prestige drama. See, cable networks and streaming platforms know now to make it into the larger TV conversation, they need that one show that comes out of nowhere, wows the critics, and demands viewers and advertisers alike to take them seriously. AMC had the double-whammy of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Netflix had House of Cards, and USA had Mr. Robot. Crackle clearly wants StartUp to be their game-changer show — the one that elbows them into the same room as rivals Netflix, Hulu, and Prime Video. So is it?
The show is pretty good, which isn’t to say it’s bad. On the contrary, it’s the slickest Crackle show to date. It’s got some beautiful lighting and cinematography, a typically great performance from Martin Freeman, and the type of casual violence and rampant sex that lets a show call itself “edgy.” A lot of this violence is jarring and a lot of the sex is unsatisfying. Why? To make sure we know this is a show about the darker side of humanity. It’s about laundered money and people trying to use one another like chess pieces. Everything about StartUp is begging to be taken ultra-seriously. In the end, the pilot is pretty good in the same bleak way most pretty good cable dramas are. That’s a problem here because it means StartUp is good, but it’s not groundbreaking.
When I spoke with series stars Edi Gathegi and Otmara Marrero earlier this summer, I asked them what drew them to StartUp. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a show that kind of came out of nowhere,” Gathegi said bluntly. “This script had the potential to be an extraordinary television show despite the fact that it was on a lesser-known streaming service, Crackle. Martin Freeman signed up and I think that changed the game for everybody.”
Marrero concurred. “For me, I was like, ‘Martin Freeman, Edi Gathegi, Adam Brody? Sign me up!”
Martin Freeman is the runaway star of the pilot. He brings a sizzling intensity that is all the more unsettling if you’re familiar with his other work. The big question, though, is what drew Martin Freeman to StartUp? The internationally-acclaimed actor has appeared in The Office, Sherlock, and Fargo. At this point, he has his pick of roles. So again: why StartUp? Well, it may be that he jumped at the opportunity to play against type. Freeman is usually cast as the put-upon everyman, the fussy loser. Here Freeman is an aggressive FBI agent willing to go to extremes to get his man. How different of a role is this for the veteran actor? Well, this is an early line of shouted dialogue: “Shut up, dick fuck! You don’t talk over me!” He sure didn’t get to say anything like that in any of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit movies.
So will StartUp change the game for Crackle? Yes and no. So far the show isn’t revolutionary enough to be “the next big thing,” but it does herald the start of sea change for the ad-clogged streaming platform. Crackle nabbed three Emmy nominations this year and continues to greenlight the kind of titles that make up an exciting library of content. Crackle’s next big project is an adaptation of Snatch starring Rupert Grint and Ed Westwick and Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee continues to thrive. StartUp might not be the show to change everything overnight for the streaming service, but it will help Crackle inch ever closer to the big leagues.
