The Fix (a Netflix production) was released, globally, on December 14^th 2018.

Recorded in the US (starting June 28th 2018) S1 had 10 x 25-minute episodes. It wasn’t recommissioned for S2.

In a bid to emulate the success of UK panel show formats there are 2 regular team captains (Katherine Ryan and D L Hughley) with a different comedian paired with them, each week.

The premise of the show is that the 2 teams are given a problem and each have to come up with a solution, no matter how off beat.

In each episode a statistician (Monica Chalabi) pops up to show some charts and give some background on the issue.

The episodes and panellists are:

1. Social Media – with Michael Ian Black and Nikki Glaser
2. Immigration – with Al Madrigal and Joel Kim Booster
3. Artificial Intelligence – with Ron Funches and Fortune Feimster
4. Gentrification – with Nicole Byer and Moshe Kasher
5. The Aging Population – with Whitney Cummings and Al Madrigal
6. Gender Pay Gap – with Nikki Glaser and Nicole Byer
7. Global Warming – with Sasheer Zamata and Ron Funches
8. Guns – with Sarah Tiana and Clayton English
9. The Opioid Crisis – Amanda Seales and Sara Schaefer
10. The Wealth Gap – Howie Mandel and Aparna Nancherla

Jimmy’s roles

Jimmy was presenter, writer and an Executive Producer on all episodes.

It was filmed at Sunset Gower-Hollywood Forever lot, in Hollywood, and Jimmy slipped in a couple of visits to The Comedy Store, LA, while he was in town.

How Was It Received?

It had a decent a decent sized audience that loved it and binge watched the 10 episodes (refer to some of the comments under the YouTube clip, below). This is a strange trailer, btw, which doesn’t do the show justice. Just a gabble of word salad.

One problem was that this was a comedy show that was tackling big topics and political tribalism meant many viewers/commenters got angry at most of the solutions being “too left wing”. See further down the trailer’s comments for examples (the angry ones are at the bottom).

The main issue (for me) was that it didn’t seem spontaneous enough. We’re used to Brit panel shows being mayhem (e.g. the BFQ episodes, when the panellists rebel against Jimmy’s instructions). These shows felt too stiff (trying too hard) as not all of the American comics were relaxed enough to banter back and forth.

Part of it may have been that, because the 2 sides each had to come up with detailed solutions (and Monica had to be prepared), each episode had to pretty much be scripted.

It has some good moments, though. Give it a try, if you have Netflix.

Viewing Numbers?

Back in 2019 Netflix were starting to leak out SOME viewing numbers, but only around the most watched films and TV shows.

I’ve looked in the BARB data archive and streamers were not making it into the top 50 in Dec 2018 / Jan 2019.

But it was still making the “hours viewed” reports in 2024 and has not been removed from Netflix (see here). Which I think means its still getting watched.

• Jan to Jun 2023 = 500,000
• Jan to Jun 2024 = 300,000

I’m not sure why it didn’t chart Jul-Dec, in these 2 years, but 800k isn’t bad for a show that was released 2018.