I also think it’s boring as hell, like every other Graham Linehan show except for Black Books (and that one’s only saved by its cast). Like BBT, it’s also excessively laugh-tracked or live-audienced.
I’d much rather watch an Armando Iannucci production.
A lot of the later shows are building upon the characters that a regular watcher already knows. So that if you jump in at the recent shows, or just watch a single episode or joke, you are missing a lot of the subtext. That wouldn’t work for any show, wouldn’t it?
I’ve watched it from the beginning. I understand the in jokes. I just watched an older episode. Parts of it still made me groan. They often hammer home certain ideas. I’ll look at my wife and say,“Boy, they’re running out of good ideas, aren’t they.” I’m not a fanboi. But I still watch it for the good shit. And I excuse the bad shit. No show is perfect, is it? Not even The Mighty Boosh or Fawlty Towers.
Like BBT, watche 1.5 episodes of IT Crowd and hated it. HAHAHA NERDS ARE FUNNY! The characters in BBT I find far more likable.
I feel It Crowd gets vastly better in later seasons. And Richard Ayoade and Matt Berry are pretty genius.
When does Matt Berry join the show? I might actually keep pushing on with it if he’s in there somewhere.
Series 2 as a recurring, then a regular in seasons 3 and 4.
Watch series 2, episode 1 on IT Crowd. If that doesn’t work for you I don’t think any of them will.
I watch BBT because it consistently makes me laugh. I get that every character’s an exaggerated stereotype – like in every sitcom – but it gets genuinely out-loud laughter from me nearly every time I watch it.
I’ve only seen a few episodes of the IT Crowd, but haven’t been remotely impressed thus far, so different tastes I suppose.
I haven’t seen a full episode of community yet, but I’ve seen clips here and there…I adore Alison Brie, but Danny Pudi just irritates me. Like, a lot. But everything I’ve seen has been out of context, so I’m not judging it yet. I do intend to give that show a decent chance.
I’m four episodes in to Arrested Development as well. I appreciate that it’s “smart” and “clever,” but it doesn’t make me laugh. Not really. A grin here, a chuckle there…I appreciate what it’s doing, and can totally understand why people say it’s a “better” show, and I’m not even gonna pretend to argue that point…but it doesn’t make me laugh, and that’s what I want out of a comedy. But again, I don’t judge any show until I’ve seen enough to form a solid opinion, and that’s not the case with any of these shows, so time will tell if I change my mind on them.
So about what time in your past did you lose your soul…?
I love Arrested Development, but I’d agree with Murph. I can probably count the number of times that show made me “laugh out loud” without running out of fingers and toes.
People have different senses of humour. I kind of wish the IT Crowd hadn’t been brought up because it has quality control issues of its own and makes for a somewhat muddy comparison.
The AD vs. BBT thing does, to me, sound like saying Bruce Springsteen isn’t as good as Britney Spears, but I’m sure there are a lot of people who’d entirely agree with the sentiment; it’s an impasse of taste wide enough that people on either side will wind up sounding like unbelievable snobs/philistines if the point is argued.
I get that you don’t like the guy’s writing, but you do understand that sitcoms aren’t (or aren’t supposed to be) just a series of jokes, right? It’s not setup, punchline, setup, punchline, for the entire duration of the show. It’s not a stand-up comedy routine. It’s supposed to be entertaining. Now, you may disagree on whether or not it’s entertaining, but complaining that a line “isn’t a joke” seems to be missing the point entirely.
There are plenty of things in sitcoms that aren’t “jokes,” that are still funny.
I actually quite agree with this: I just think there are different “solutions” to the problem of how to deal with that, and I hate the one that BBT/TaaHM adopts. If anything I’d say that the “joke” density is unsustainable high - every few seconds, there’s the laugh track - and in order to keep that pace going they resort to jokeoids. They aren’t funny situations or bemusing comic realism, like on the Cosby Show, or long deadpan buildups, like on AD or other high concept comedies, or off-the-wall zaniness like Robot Chicken or something, it’s just a drip-drip-drip of over-broad, over-obvious FUNNY SITUATIONS HAHA and jokeoid-dialogue-joke-dialogue-jokeoid. I’d rather dialogue-dialogue-dialogue-dialogue-dialogue-joke than have all that unfunny filler rammed in.
I’ll bet, and I don’t mean this in any way insultingly, that most of the audience didn’t really bat an eye at “But there are no Jewish hobbits!” because it’s completely typical filler. It’s as good a summary of what’s awful about the show as the youtube clip with the laugh track removed.
I think what we’ve determined here is:
Left Hand
[spoiler]A banger in the mouth.
Douche Chill
That musty old claptrap
Gob, the Waiter
Gob, the Pimp[/spoiler]
Right Hand
Excuuuuse me!
The chicken dance
Carl Weathers
Club sauce
Club sauce
Left Foot
Gene Parmesan, how are you doing?
Here comes John Wayne
9/11
The Old Bear
Some suits
Right Foot
Bob Loblaw
A ban on organized sports
The boat, the Seaward
Illusions, not tricks
Another version of that
Last one:
Way to plant!
I’d say that many of you just aren’t fans of the Multi-Cam Sitcom format.
Here’s a cool link I found:
Multi-camera sitcom is a strange format that’s unique to television, because unlike single-camera, which is basically a little movie, multi-camera is a combination of different formats: a bit of film, a bit of radio, and a great big heaping helping of theatre. A multi-camera sitcom episode is a play, a performance. It’s where the traditions of American theatre comedy mostly migrated after Broadway decided to stop staging anything where people don’t sing and/or fall from spider webs.
And setup, laugh, setup, laugh is indeed a major part of the modern multi-cam sitcom format. It’s not just a Chuck Lorre thing. Watch an old episode of Friends and make a little tally mark every time there’s a laugh line. You’ll be amazed at the Joke-Per-Minute output on even that old show. This has been SOP for years.
I tolerate most multi-cam sitcoms fine, and quite enjoy some of them; there’s no real parallel with how much I dislike Lorre’s. Subjectively I’m pretty sure the density of “laughs” is higher, and I’m sure there are more (and less funny) jokeoids than in a decent implementation of the same thing.
Ahhhhh… It’s been too long since I rewatched Arrested Development – I had actually forgotten several of those.
“They don’t allow you to have bees in here.” Best line reading ever.
watching the AD clips again and all I can think of is Archer when I hear the mother talk.
Regarding the earlier post about the jokoid, we know that sitcoms aren’t just a string of jokes, but the laugh track tries to make it SEEM like that’s what’s going on. They laugh at stuff that isn’t even supposed to be funny sometimes I swear.
In no small part because of the shared timeslot with this show. Which is probably also what draws so much ire towards it compared to any other vapid sitcom, like glee or the like