The Blue Jean Committee leads the "soft rock" way on Documentary Now - Season 1

The Blue Jean Committee album cover tells you most of what you need to know about Season 1 of Documentary Now! I had watched a sporadic handful of these episodes when they were released back in 2015, but it was fun to go back and revisit them in order. While Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, and Seth Meyers' mockumentary take on the VH1 style rock documentary are the last two episodes in Season 1, they are the only true must-see parts of the season.

I'm not saying the other episodes aren't worth watching. “Sandy Passage,” a takeoff of Grey Gardens, is my second favorite, with Hader playing the dancing daughter of a singing elderly woman played by Armisen. The first episode of the season spoofs the strange, hushed, and procedural way documentaries have unfolded as a genre over the years. It's hilarious in the first 20 minutes as it builds this odd relationship and living situation between the mom and daughter, but then gets a little overly silly in the last five minutes as the story descends into a horror tale. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Next up, Jack Black plays a TV-show host who sends Hader and Armisen as reporters to cover the Mexican drug trade in “DRONZES: The Hunt for El Chignon.” It's highly watchable while somehow also being an inessential takeoff of Vice-style, hard-hitting journalism. 3.5 out of 5 stars

“Kunuk Uncovered” is the least essential episode in the season, taking a look at a fictional Inuit hunter who is remembered fondly in this strange spoof of Nanook of the North. 3 out of 5 stars

“The Eyes Don’t Lie” is a send-up of crime procedural docs, with a bunch of silly southern characters increasingly leading the finger in the Sign Spinner Murder Case towards Hader and Armisen’s doofy characters. It gets funnier and funnier as the trial crescendos. 4.5 out of 5 stars

Sandy Passage

“A Town, A Gangster, A Festival” documents an Al Capone Festival that takes place every year in a small rural community in Iceland. But then change happens. Another village in Iceland introduces a Jimi Hendrix Festival to appeal to a more youthful audience. Nevermind, because the power of groupthink keeps this Capone-obsessed town on track for believing its festival is still a great idea. 4 out of 5 stars

“Gentle and Soft: The Blue Jean Committee” is the season-ending two-parter. From Hader and Armisen's characters growing up in sausage school in Chicago to their transformation from blues band to California superstars and back to retirement in the Chicago sausage factory and a Malibu ocean pad, respectively, this yacht-rock band’s arc includes testimonials from legends like Daryl Hall, Kenny Loggins, Chuck Klosterman, Cameron Crowe, and others. Hader’s falsetto on the hit “Catalina Breeze” seals their hall-of-fame pedigree, even though the entire hit-filled album was recorded over the course of just 72 hours. The meat tradition in the guys’ upbringing is threatened when they discover they’re booked at the Hollywood Bowl for an animal rights benefit. But they refuse to “turn their backs on the sausage community.” The way things end up is really pretty deep and touching. This is the heart of Documentary Now!’s first season. (And for a little more, see the band's completely different "Massachusetts Afternoon" origin story on Saturday Night Live - thanks for the head's up Jeff Young!) 5 out of 5 stars