We typically think of someone who is “high maintenance” as a person who is needy and prone to complaining. Urban Dictionary says he or she probably acts this way to gain attention.
What if we think of this phrase in a more obscure way? Take the word “high”, a sensation one experiences while on narcotics. The word “maintenance” meaning someone who provides the service of fixing something. This play on words has brought the internet the next big thing not on television, according to Nylon magazine.
High Maintenance is a web series that recently released it’s second season on Vimeo.
A web series is different from a television show or personal YouTube channel in the sense that the cast is interchangeable with the exception of one character. Occasionally, characters and their daily lives intertwine, as well.
A web series may be scripted or staged, to a certain extent, yet relationships between characters feel real and authentic. Even the apartments or set of the show is filmed in a real life home, giving a personal experience.
I discovered High Maintenance the same way I discovered another beloved web series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld. While clicking through my favorite mom blog, Cup of Jo, I happened upon High Maintenance and was ultimately hooked.
After binge watching the entire first cycle, I felt like I was exposed to another kind of drug related show. I’ve seen Weeds and Breaking Bad, both funny and well-written, but High Maintenance is different.
The series is filmed throughout New York following “The Guy” (the weed dealer) played by Ben Sinclair, one of the creators alongside his wife Katja Blichfeld, a former casting director on 30 Rock.
Essentially, the basis of the show explores the neuroses of a variety of New Yorkers. What ties them together is that they all have the same weed delivery guy. Clever, right?
Whether they’re dealing with family, work, or the foreign AirBnb guest they’re hosting, the diverse “cast” explores realms of life that ultimately result in the need to “maintain” through smoking pot.
The show bares this underlying charm due to the range of scenarios: a mouse in the apartment, unknowingly dating a homeless girl, or even cancer. The light behind all of these vignettes is the weed delivery guy.
Sinclair is portrayed as any other man in his early thirties who looks like he works at Uncle Dan’s. Traveling by bike and always arriving 40 minutes late (for obvious reasons), Sinclair is typically outfitted in an Urban-Outfitters-Brooklyn-flea-market-esque look.
Adorned with a scruffy beard and a wedding ring, the dealer is seemingly trusting. In fact, most vignettes result in Sinclair smoking or chatting intimately with whomever he’s serving. At the end, there is always this enlightening, profound truth or awakening the characters experience. This is even translated to the viewer watching.
High Maintenance takes daily rituals, funny experiences, and relationships and connects them thoughtfully.
The show isn’t a “stoner show”. There is no one person or group of people Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld are associating with the drug, exploiting the ideal that people who smoke may be some of the most successful and creative people.
This way, by having a multitudinous, well-rounded cast, the stereotypes of smoking is gone. The reason their smoking pot has a deeper meaning than “just because” and the creators explore that in a realistic way.
You can watch the first four cycles for free at helpingyoumaintain.com and once you become fully addicted and need to start cycle five, head over to Vimeo.com and rent one episode for $1.99 or the entire season for $7.99.