Maniac Is the Most Netflix-y Netflix Show Yet. In a Bad Way

This is the first item I read about Maniac. Don't see why it highly rated.

Seems like VR weird fantasy. The Cage and Space Odyssey did that 50 years ago.

Metascore is 76 and doesn't include this review. https://www.metacritic.com/tv/maniac-2018/critic-reviews

https://www.wired.com/story/netflix-manic-review/

But when the computer overseeing the experiments starts taking on human qualities—it doesn’t wear tennis shoes, but it does begin feeling depressed—Owen and Annie suddenly experience shared, subconscious-occupying fantasias.

It's at this point that Maniac becomes completely untethered, both from any sort of recognizable human behavior, and from whatever narrative ideas it may have been setting up early on (none which were particularly novel, but still). In one fantasy, Owen and Annie imagine themselves as a working-class '80s1 couple trying to rescue a prized lemur. In another, they're at-odds early-20th-century con-artists … hoping to steal an obscure Don Quixote-related artifact ... during a séance.

Maniac’s fantasies are thirsty for whimsy: This is a show that thinks the word "lemur" repeated over and over again in a Long Island accent is funny, and that "everything in life is, like, connected" is some kind of miraculous observation. The episode-long excursions also bring to mind the early days of Netflix's original-series efforts, when the streamer would throw tons of dollar bills—but seemingly no notes—at pricey indulgences like Marco Polo and The Get Down.