The original post: /r/television by /u/speashasha on 2025-08-18 16:24:00+00:00.
Netflix’s new animated series “Long Story Short” from the creator of BoJack Horseman premieres on Friday, August 22.
The first reviews are in now:
Long Story Short: this Jewish family comedy from the creator of BoJack Horseman is painfully beautiful
While it lacks a famous horse, Long Story Short (Netflix, from Friday 22 August) is its own beast, and no less ambitious. It’s a family saga told in multiple timelines. The Schwoopers are an argumentative, chaotic Jewish household. Each episode focuses on a character or relationship, swooshing back and forward in time, from the 1950s to the 2020s, as they navigate romance, coming of age, marital breakdown, parenting, old wounds, joy, death and purpose. Basically, it’s Bluey meets Tolstoy.
What makes Long Story Short better than BoJack Horseman - Netflix’s Long Story Short delivers emotional family saga spanning 70 years
What makes Long Story Short particularly compelling is its refusal to privilege any single time period or character. The 1) 1950s sequences carry equal weight with 2) contemporary storylines, while 3) the decades in between reveal how relationships shift, heal and sometimes break across generations.
Time as the ultimate storyteller
The show’s innovative structure allows viewers to see characters at different life stages, watching children become parents and understanding how past decisions ripple through decades. This temporal juggling act brings characters back from the dead, fleshes out complex relationships and grounds viewers in the moral complexity of real family dynamics.
Unlike most dramas that use flashbacks sparingly, Long Story Short treats all time periods as equally important. The effect is both disorienting and deeply moving, reminding viewers of the painful beauty of our limited time together.