I wasn’t enjoying Season 3 as much as the first two. I kind of felt like they were spinning their wheels and the comedy wasn’t quite as sharp - then I watched last night’s episode which may be my favorite of the series. William Jackson Harper really shined in that episode.
Yes! It’s amazing, and I wish every show had half as good a podcast (or any podcast, really) that talked with the cast and crew about the previously aired episode. This is so awesome.
I didn’t think they could top season 2, but season 3 looks to be just even better yet once again. Quickly becoming my favorite show on TV.
More like, amirite.
That would mean every podcast would have to have the wonderful Marc Evan Jackson as its host.
I am okay with that.
I also just realized I’d love a Brooklynn Nine-Nine episode 'cast with him hosting. My life is a little dimmer for now realizing that’s not a thing.
Disappointed with the 3rd season. When they threw Adam Scott’s character into the mix I was excited for a change in dynamic and some of that appealing sinister tension that comes with having a mole that only the audience is aware of - it seemed to justify the tedious setup of the opening eps, but it was apparently a one-off bit, quickly resolved and forgotten by the next episode. Chapter 30 might be the weakest in the series, the shticky character humor (Jason is sweet but dim! Chidi is the neurotic one! etc.) is just getting tired and can’t sustain the show on its own, I’m hoping the post credit interdimensional portal reveal gives us a strong new direction.
(I know in advance this won’t work written down, so you will have to do a lot of the work in backwards-engineering the delivery, but anyway I laughed…)
At the start of a recent Spontaneanation, one of the improvisers mentioned in passing that she’d asked Marc Evan Jackson if he’d ever been to a Target, and he said (slightly horrified) “…no.”
I hear it in his voice and it’s WONDERFUL.
Marc Evan Jackson is one of the top three reasons to listen to the Thrilling Adventure Hour.
The other two are Piaget Bruster, and the Deep Sea Detective (His parents died at sea!)
Well now I have to give it a listen.
If you are a fan of humorous podcasts and story telling, I would think I’m this might be up your alley. Although I think it will be going up behind a paywall soon, if it hasn’t already. The series wrapped up in 2016.
I can’t seem to find it in its entirety so I can start from episode one, yeah. I don’t mind paying if it’s not too expensive.
You’re in luck, because Chapter 31 is one of the best episodes of the series!
As someone who was meh when this first premiered, I cannot state enough how much I love the show. Each season has its own strengths and weaknesses, yet the whole is just great. I love the variance between seasons even though I think there were many more possibilities in each one. I know it has a finite lifespan and that makes me sad, but I am gonna enjoy the ride. And whenever I feel uneasy about a new direction something soon happens to restore my faith. This week’s stellar episode was just one such example.
This has become my favorite comedy of its generation, and my favorite since Happy Endings.
I still love the show, but the writers seem to be having a hard time in Season 3. This week’s episode was definitely an up-swing, but overall I feel like the joke density is much lower and the plot zigs and zags for no apparent reason. Honestly, despite my love of it, the way the show is constructed, it just may not be sustainable. But hopefully I’m wrong and the writers will find their footing.
Ugh, a Jason-heavy episode.
We just got fully caught up last night, and I’m not sure what y’all are on about. This season has been just as fantastic as the previous two.
I think @WhollySchmidt did a good job expressing his viewpoint in this post from 7 days ago, as well as his own post that he quoted after the first season. Basically the show changes a lot. Just when you think, okay, this season will be about this, it changes again.
Personally I’m with you, I’ve been loving all of it; all 3 seasons so far. The writers earned my trust back in Season 1, so ever since then I haven’t worried about it. But it sounds like they haven’t earned Schmidt’s trust yet. He’s still worried about if they’ve got a plan where all this is going.
It was similar when me and my friends were watching Battlestar Galactica. After a few stellar episodes, I didn’t really care anymore if they had a plan or not. Each episode was so enjoyable, I didn’t care if it all went to hell at the end (which it kind of did). But a couple of my friends were worried about that the whole time, which made the show a lot less enjoyable for them. It was the same for me with Deep Space Nine vs Babylon 5. There was just this comfort in knowing that B5 was planned out for 5 years, and as a result I enjoyed it more than DS9. But then, eventually I discovered I loved DS9 more. So that was the turning point for me, I decided not to worry about whether there’s a plan or not, but just to judge something on how much I enjoy each episode. That’s why I ended up enjoying most of Lost as well (even though I was convinced it was going nowhere, and I turned out to be right).
I think that’s exactly how I feel about it.
I tried to clarify a little bit that my fears of “do they have a plan?” from season one have subsided. But they have been replaced with a feeling that I can’t get too emotionally invested now because the rug is pulled out from under the characters so frequently now, changing the stakes and sometimes even literally resetting their memories and actions. I can’t get connected to them.
Which is fine, okay, I’ll just laugh along with the jokes. But as a purely comedic pleasure, it’s a little compromised by the need to keep advancing the larger narrative that I just explained I can’t summon much interest in.
So it’s a funny show, I like it, but I push back because I don’t love it, and the rest of the internet seems to.