This parody of old TV romance mini-series has been described as an extended SNL sketch, but I'd actually describe it as an extended Carol Burnett Show sketch in style. They did a lot of these sorts of parodies (most famously a Gone with the Wind sketch), and the broad humor and general silliness remind me more of Burnett than SNL.What makes it more like SNL is that, like SNL, it's really not very funny. There are certainly cute moments, but there's a sophomoric quality to the humor that fails to resonate. Also, while the cast is fairly talented, for most of them this isn't their wheelhouse. These are not Burnett/Conway/Lawrence-style actors, and the very broad writing isn't pushed through by the subtler performance style.Humor is a very individual thing, and for some people this show is hilarious. For me, well, one user review said this show was a poor version of a series I'd never heard of, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, which also parodied an old, badly-made series, and I found the first episode of that on youtube. I watched just a few minutes of it and laughed more than during the entire first episode of Spoils (I was almost breathless during the handshake scene). So basically the best thing that came out of watching this is I learned about something a lot funnier.

The first rule of satire is that satire must be more self conscious than the material being satirized. The slipshod production of Spoils is far worse than any actual 70s mini-series. What Garth Marenghi's Darkplace has that this does not is it reveals the syntax of shoddiness: what bad, lazy, pompous film looks like, revealed by nuanced, subtle, detailed observation. The average 70s miniseries is much better made than this show. If you liked the concept of this show, but hated the lazy, stupid, derivative execution, I would recommend Danger 5, and Garth Marenghi's Darkplace as similar ideas done earlier and infinitely better.

Having watched 3 episodes already, I find myself anxious to see the next one. That doesn't happen very often in TV comedy, so they must be doing something right.Although the production could not be referred to as "subtle", there are a lot of little touches that you really need to look for. I find it best if I record the show so that I can go back and look at the little details, like changes in the background that might otherwise go un-noticed. It's sort of like the throwaways on "The Simpsons" where they pan through the house and you see skeletons in the walls - but you almost have to put the show into slo-mo to see these bits.Spoils is like a show with a really pathetic continuity person, so that a beer bottle in one scene gets replaced by a glass of scotch in the next, and then morphs into a bottle of Coke. IMDb should cut off the "Goofs" category for this show, as there are so many intentional errors in it.And I have suffered through melodramas like the one parodied here, which makes the satire just that much more biting. The comparisons to Police Squad and Airplane! are probably apt - I think that if you liked either of these, you'll enjoy Spoils.

Firstly let me say that we need a negative score for this show....-10.... I have watched more than a few poor quality shows in my time but nothing has ever come close to this. It was time I have lost forever ........... Never have I seen anything that was listed as comedy, fall so far from that realm.. it was appalling in every way imaginable. I made the mistake of watching 2 yes TWO full episodes of this rubbish.. now I am commenting for the first time so that other people might be spared that horror... I can honestly say that it was the worst show I have ever watched.... There was not one redeeming feature about this show, maybe there was 1 redeeming feature each episode was ONLY 22 minutes long............I am so disappointed because I WAS looking forward to this show..I cannot understand how people have rated it as highly as they have....and how any actors, producers and/or directors can put their name to such a bundle of rubbish/***t