TV: Cobra Kai

There's a fine line between farce and stupidity, and it's toed especially well by the streaming series Cobra Kai (now on Netflix after two years as a YouTube Red exclusive):

Cobra Kai is a sequel to the Karate Kid movies (except for the Jackie Chan reboot).  The antagonist of the first film, a down-on-his-luck Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), opens a karate dojo and sparks the ire of series hero Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio).  The premise sounds absolutely terrible on paper, but the series works better than it has any right to, as it's zealously faithful to the original material while allowing its charismatic young cast of 20-somethings-playing-high-schoolers to shine.

When characters say things like "Half the kids in school know karate now" or "If you would have told me a year ago that our family's safety depended on winning a karate tournament, I would have thought you were joking," they do it with a straight face, giving the show just enough seriousness for dramatic stakes.  All of that leads up to lengthy, ridiculous karate rumbles, where the entire cast slugs it out with nary a teacher, police officer, or adult intervening: