You're definitely entitled to your opinion. But I found the initial run of Arrested Development to be one of the best written sitcoms ever. Also, part of the point is that the main protagonist and his son are good people who stay and support their terrible family members out of loyalty.
I would characterize Michael more by his self-righteousness and ego-driven attempts to be good than his actual goodness; so many of the show’s hijinks stem from his savior complex bringing out the hypocrisy in his attempts to be ‘a good guy’.
To be clear I think it adds to the humor, not complaining at all. Horrible people being horrible makes great comedy and Arrested Development offers far more than just that (probably my favorite comedy show). But it can get kinda depressing, if I’m not in a great mood I can’t take more than a couple episodes at a time.
Michael being self-righteously and self-centered-ly good, and everyone else being earnestly and obliviously (and maybe even endearingly) terrible sounds about right. :)
Horrible people being horrible is a staple of great sitcoms, at least in the UK. Peep Show, IT Crowd, Black Books, Father Ted, Blackadder, Steptoe and Son, The Office, Bottom, The Young Ones, Til Death Us Do Part… the list just goes on.
I guess that’s why I find American stuff like Always Sunny, Arrested Development and Seinfeld more satisfying than stuff like Friends or Modern Family that always has to have a moral.
You know I never noticed that about the UK until you pointed that out but looking back on every British show I’ve ever watched, you are right. With the exception of Doctor Who that is pretty much all of them.
That said I will die on the hill of “Ricky Gervais is not and has never been funny”
I like the Ricky Gervais show but let’s be real that’s all Karl Pilkington.
Sometimes there’s some elements that really shows the potential and brilliance that is interesting enough to keep pushing forward. So while it might not hit the point of must see TV right away, going in with the knowledge that it hits its stride in season X helps keep things in perspective. When I’m informed of something like that I’m willing to put up with the slow burn if the pay off is to be great, and there’s at least some redeeming qualities about the show until then.
For me, if a show isn’t good during the first season, then it’s very unlikely that I’ll watch the rest of it. I’m really not someone who plays the game of skipping seasons, unless it’s absolutely called for.
That said, Deep Space Nine is an amazing show, but one that has a bit of a rough Landing. It feels like the show legitimately did not understand that Sisko and not Quark was the main character until a producer cleared up the misunderstanding with the writers. And although Quark is the best part of the show, it does get a bit more interesting when the events revolve around the cardassians and bajorans, after all there are only so many ways you can raise the stakes of a show from inside of a bar.
That being said, when it comes to Classic mst3k, I find the Mike years to be vastly superior to the Joel years, to the point where if I’m rewatching the series just to have noise in the background while I’m doing something else, I’m going to exclusively choose from the list of Mike episodes. If I’m watching it just watch it though the Joel episodes actually have a chance to shine. I understand this is a bit of a controversial take. That being said if we are talking the modern incarnation of the show, then I’m definitely going to go for a Joel episode over anything having to do with Riff trax.
I mean RiffTrax isn’t bad per se, but sometimes I get a aging Rockstar trying to relive The Glory Days vibe from it.
While on the subject, having someone start It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the first season is just setting them up to writeboff the show as jist “meh”
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is one of those shows where I definitely recommend skipping the first season. Normally even if the first season is kind of bad, I still recommend people watch it in order to familiarize themselves with the show. But the jump in quality after Danny DeVito joins the cast… really is that severe, especially since he brings a whole bunch of other changes to the show. Such as Deandra no longer being the voice of reason, but being just as unstable as everyone else, which is a very welcome change because the woman being the one smart person is a sitcom cliche that is honestly quite tiresome. Plus her delusions of grandeur are funny as hell.
I would dare say that the first season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is painfully unfunny aside, where is the rest of the series is just downright amazing.
Not me but a friend of mine recommended a show… I think it was sons of anarchy. Where they pitched it to me, with no exaggeration on my part, as “you just have to get through the first two or three seasons, then it gets really good”.
I fell in love with my now ex-wife (then girlfriend) in no small part because she had great humor and I liked a lot of the shows she liked.
So when one day in 2010 she raved about “The Mighty Boosh”, of which she owned all DVDs including the live stuff, I had to check it out.
I started watching S01E01 and felt like watching someone’s fever dream trying to recreate a kid’s show. Same for the second, third etc episode.
Usually I’d have long given up on that show. But there had to be something to it, if she loved the show so much.
So I started watching season 2 (“Milky Joe” or “The Priest and The Beast”, I can’t really remember) and it clicked immediately. From there I binged all other episodes + season 3 + season 1 again - and I loved it all and couldn’t understand how I didn’t like it initially.
And thanks to that I discovered other gems from the same “circle” like “Snuff Box”, “Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place”, “Luxury Comedy” and “The IT Crowd” (some episodes haven’t aged well, but others are just filled with gold).
Breaking Bad. Watched the first 10 minutes or so of the first episode then gave up on it for over a year. Eventually gave it a second chance and couldn’t binge the whole thing quickly enough…
Yeah Breaking Bad and stranger things are those shows that everyone else loves, that I just can’t get into. I have been meaning to go back to them though.
West Wing. When it came out years ago, (24 actually…) I saw a couple episodes and it didn’t interest me. But about 8 years ago I ended up watching every episode on Netflix and loved it. But wow, if I had to slog through to season 4 of a show to enjoy it, I would never get there.
I downloaded the entire series in 2010, hoping I could binge-watch it while I’m still on night shift. Couldn’t get myself to finish the slow boring pilot, set it aside, and forgot about it completely.
More than 10 years later, I see it on HBO Max remastered. Managed to survive EP1, and quickly after that, I couldn’t wait to watch every other episode.
I’ve always said the best shows are the ones wherein you can name every character to even the smallest one and know why they stuck with you. The Wire is one of those and remains my favorite of all time.
I watched everything and I’m of the opinion that it’s an amazing show, huge production, great acting but it’s definitely not for everyone. Even as a fan of the show you still look back at every episode / season and are like: “What did I even watch?” :P
Bad Media is interesting because the ineptitude is usually comedic. It’s why I consider it a step above “Boring Media”
The problem is Bad Media that is intended to be comedic is the most toxic substance known to man. A comedy is supposed to be funny, being inept at a medium can be funny, but being inept at comedy causes the funniness of both to cancel out and create… Anti-Lulz
Got into deep space 9 about ten years ago. It was on TV when I was a kid but it never clicked. The environments and characters were too weird and I didn’t understand wtf was going on. Well, people seemed to love it so I decided to start watching from the beginning, and… Yeah. My only regret is I’ll never be able to watch it for the first time again. ;_;
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