I recently switched from DirecTV to cable television, and so even though I'm not a middle-aged white guy, I do mostly fall into the demographic described in these spots, and I can personally vouch for the big pain the ass that cable can be as far as television content delivery goes. Angry, depressed, frustrated…yes, all these are realities when confronted by the jaw-droppingly poor user interface of the DVR software that comes with at least my cable package.
But regarding the spots themselves, they are incredibly well-crafted and provide great examples of how to move a story along with maximum efficiency and speed. Must've been fun coming up with ideas: start somewhere completely mundane, on the couch in front of the tube, and get as far down the road as you can get in thirty seconds. And of course since having cable kicks off the whole unstoppable Rube Goldbergian sequence of events, where the character ends up has to be some place undesirable. I mean, okay, he can't end up dead (this isn't the Meth Project), but let's just say as close as you can get without showing like an actual corpse onscreen (though note that in the Phil Shiffley spot, he does sorta end up dead).
The steps themselves have to be plausible, if somewhat outrageous, of course, and it's worth noting that the speed between the steps (facilitated by the running voiceover) (though even viewed with no audio, the stories hold mostly together) has to be high because the punchline and enjoyment of the spots, I think, is in having to kind of catch up at the end of the spot when our hero is lying in the roadside ditch or barely avoiding being blown up along with his suburban home and assess what has just transpired and acknowledge that yes, that's possible, if not particularly plausible. It's fun to have to say, Wait a minute, did I miss something? and realize that no you didn't, you scan for efficiency and find that you were given exactly enough information to validate the next jump, and that the spot still got you to a place that you never would have imagined you'd end up when the spot began. These stories are tight, the shots chosen wisely, performances shaped and distilled down to a glance or tiny gesture.
And the performances, including the deadpan reportage of the voiceover artist, are key to making all of this work. From the wife's tiny step backwards in the first spot, eyes locked on her husband, to the little daughter's first imitative palm slap, to Charlie Sheen's psychotic stare, just about all of the actors have these beats nailed to the wall. I suppose going in knowing that the camera will not have the luxury of allowing moments to develop probably helped in terms of finding the right quick gesture or expression, but it's a lesson that can certainly be carried over to work that does have the room breathe a little more.
Careful attention to mise-en-scène adds the final flourishes to the work. Details complete these spots, touches such as the red pepper shaker on the hood of the car after it has crashed into the pizzeria, or the room service that's just to the left of Sheen (along with an half-guzzled bottle of Pepto-Bismol), or the fact that after the Fist of Goodness comes crashing through the skylight and is seeing stars on the dinner table, the guy just adjacent to him appears to continue to eat, what looks like a swordfish steak. At the very least, he's protecting his wine glass. Little details like this are fun to discover, and contribute to the narrative density of these commericals. No opportunity is wasted.