Alternatino with Arturo Castro is refreshing, yet it shouldn't be the only sketch comedy show with a Latinx star

Variety

Guatemalan-born Broad City and Narcos actor Arturo Castro is able to show his comedy range on his new Comedy Central sketch show that originated as a web series. "There’s something extremely cathartic about watching a Latinx comedian get his own platform to do as he pleases, ripping cliches in the entertainment industry and beyond with invigorating vehemence," says Caroline Framke. "With his new Comedy’s Central sketch show Alternatino, Arturo Castro has the rare opportunity to tell his own story and skewer the inevitably cringe-inducing perceptions of it, and he seizes it with palpable gusto." Yet Framke adds: "By all rights, Alternatino should not be TV’s only sketch comedy show fronted by a Latinx actor; it’s just too much pressure, and you can feel the show straining underneath it while also trying to make fun of it. Still, Castro and company are more than game to try, and the moments when they pull it off are worth the effort."

ALSO:

• Alternatino is acceptable-but-unremarkable, the occasional perceptive or funny bit lost amid the inoffensively stale or inevitably dated
• Arturo Castro’s charisma and range go a long way as he strains to subvert expectations
• It’s that pullback, that skirting the edges of discomfort and discovery, that makes Alternatino such an enjoyable watch -- for some, but not everybody
• Castro would like Trump supporters to watch, even if they hate-watch it at first
• How much of Alternatino is autobiographical?: "A lot of it was either my experience or the writers’ experience," says Castro. "'Play and Pivot' is the interstitial in the second episode, and it was me and the other Latinx writers in the room talking about being the only Latino in a group of white people—but, like, uber-woke white people. Everyone always wants to tell me about the time they did ayahuasca in Bolivia or whatever, and I am there like, 'That’s great! I’ve never been, but cool!'"