This is the most surreal comedy you’ll see this year

Fantasmas
★★★★
Binge

If you’re familiar with the work of Salvadoran-American comedian and actor Julio Torres, best known as a writer for Saturday Night Live and co-creator of the Spanish language fantasy-comedy Los Espookys, you’ll know not to expect standard sitcom fare with his new series.

Julio Torres as Julio (with his robot assistant Bibo) in Fantasmas.Credit: Binge

And those not familiar are in for a treat, as Fantasmas, created by, written by, directed by and starring Torres, is an incredible showcase of his talent – and his delightfully twisted mind.

Torres plays Julio, a version of himself in a dreamy, heightened version of New York City, living with his personal assistant robot, Bibo (voiced by Joe Rumrill). Struck by lightning as a child (while going to the toilet in the woods), Julio has been gifted with the ability to “see things in a different way”. He can sense the inner lives of objects and concepts, and picks up jobs using his “free-association synesthesia”.

The first episode opens with him pitching a new crayon to Crayola – a clear-coloured one, to “represent the intangible emotional space between us”, he explains to the perplexed executives. The name of that crayon, he suggests, should be “fantasmas”. (That’s the only explanation of the show’s title we’re ever going to get, given that Fantasmas is so surreal as to lie almost beyond description.)

Julio has other talents – he’s consulting with NASA on rebranding a constellation, and has several ideas for a new streaming service run by the shoe company Zappos – but he lacks his “Proof of Existence” card, something that he needs in order to find a new apartment and access medical care, and to which Julio is opposed.

That storyline is the most grounded thing in this six-part series, in which each episode is really a loose collection of absurd (and very funny) sketches that bleed into each other, and occasionally recur throughout the series, with an overarching storyline (of sorts) that sees Julio trying to track down a lost gold oyster-shaped earring. The reason doesn’t really matter here, it’s the journeys he takes in his search that comprise the bulk of the action as Torres marries the mundanity of life with campy magical absurdism.

A few of these sketches come from television programs Julio catches glimpses of, such as the ’80s-style sitcom Melf (a sexier version of puppet alien ALF) or the live court case on Court TV between Santa and one of his disgruntled elves, but often it’s from his interaction with people he encounters around the city, from his friends to call centre operators, doctors and fellow ride-share passengers.

Among the surrealism – which extends to the production design being deliberately stagey and artificial– there’s also some deft social commentary, touching on everything from queer representation to social media, capitalism and the entertainment industry.

Produced by Emma Stone and her husband (and former SNL director) Dave McCary, the series also boasts an incredible line-up of guest stars, including Stone, Tilda Swinton, Aidy Bryant, Steve Buscemi (an absolute highlight in a vignette about the alphabet, playing the defiantly punk letter Q), Alexa Demie and singer Kim Petras.

Fantasmas might occasionally feel like a modern-day Pee Wee’s Playhouse or a queer hipster take on Scorcese’s 1985 film After Hours, but it is entirely its own beast – and a glorious one.

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