Director Glover deftly builds up Chocolate Land as a domain ruled by an omnipresent force, from Van and Lottie arriving at dawn and walking through the lot in the morning light to the switch from multi-camera sitcom to a single-camera realism when the god speaks through the machine. I also appreciated the crew becoming more pro-Chocolate the more involved they are in the production, leaving Van feeling more out of sync with everyone around her the longer she was there.
Another very solid narrative choice made in “Work Ethic!” is presenting Van as the actor before Mr. Chocolate chooses Lottie. There’s a quick psych-out with the other child actors in the waiting room, but Van was never the stage mom type. Her determination to protect Lottie is very sweet, with writer Janine Nabers’ dialogue showing the strength of their relationship.
Series 3 was a hard watch