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Current TV Boxset Addiction

Started by radiator, 20 November, 2012, 02:23:29 PM

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radiator

It really makes you realise that, while some episodes in those first three seasons were stronger than others (season one certainly takes a good long while to really find its feet), I actually don't think there's a single weak or downright unfunny joke in all 70-odd episodes, so it's really jarring and weirdly repulsive watching season 4 and seeing jokes crash and burn left right and centre. It just feels so wrong!

They Britta'd it.

It reminds me of Modern Family. While it was never a serious contender for 'greatest sitcom of all time', I thought the first two seasons were surprisingly strong - a little derivative, but warm, authentic and genuinely funny. And then it just completely went off a cliff between seasons two and three, and no one seemed to notice. I even checked to see if there'd been any major staff or writing team changes, but it just looks like they won a few awards and got complacent. Even Friends had four or five decent series before they got lazy and started phoning it in.

radiator

#346
Just watched episode 4, and the Germans from the foosball episode are brought back... so loads of unfunny, borderline-offensive WWII jokes can be made at their expense. Oh deary me.

And Jeff keeps openly referring to the study group as his 'family' and talking about his feelings....!!!!

Definitely Not Mister Pops

Yeah, and Jeff's heartfelt and inspirational speeches seem to be genuinely heartfelt and inspirational. It's all wrong.
You may quote me on that.

radiator

#348
The stuff with Jeff's Dad was especially awful - all that careful buildup squandered so thoughtlessly. Apparently Dan Harmon had always wanted Bill Murray to play the role, which would have been insanely good - I feel like Murray's comedic style would have really gelled with the show's sensibilities. Guess that'll never happen now.

Funny how the new show-runners tried to make the show more accessible and the characters more likable, and ended up doing the exact opposite. All these dated anti-German jokes. Sheesh.

All the pop-culture reference stuff seems really forced too. In the old series, they used that stuff to tell real, emotional stories about the relationships and group dynamics in interesting ways. So far this series it all feels really shoehorned-in and awkward.

Professor Bear

I was going to pitch in that I didn't find much particularly objectionable about season 4 and a lot of objections may have been influenced by people's opinions on the departure of Dan Harmon, but then I remember Chang this season.  And that I didn't bother watching the rest of this season.
To be fair, though, German jokes are relevant among the under-40s because they (Germans) have become synonymous with dance culture, mid-80s synth-pop references and being villains in action films thanks to a generation of popular entertainment eating its own arsehole with references to the trends followed in the youth of those making it.  Basically Family Guy is to blame.

radiator

Nah, I've watched a fair few eps now and I can say with some confidence that season 4 is pretty much tortuous. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen - you can tell they're at least trying, and a couple of moments even raised a smile - but it's a monumental cliff-dive in quality, and made me cringe more than it did laugh. I read a review on amazon that said there were less good jokes in the entire season than in one episode of the Harmon era, and I'd have to agree. It's like an awkward, clumsy cover-version. They hang entire episodes on comedic conceits that would have been throwaway jokes in previous seasons. And they've really neutered Jeff - no wonder McHale was the one to pull the strings to get Harmon back on board for s5. At least the setup of the series is kind of fluid so they'll be able to write around and retcon a lot of this dross.

Quote(Germans) have become synonymous with dance culture, mid-80s synth-pop references and being villains in action films thanks to a generation of popular entertainment eating its own arsehole with references to the trends followed in the youth of those making it

But jokes about WWII? In 2013? Really? I don't want to draw too much attention to that one aspect, but it seemed very distasteful and unCommunity-like to me.

Tiplodocus

Quote from: radiator on 14 November, 2013, 11:45:19 PM
But jokes about WWII? In 2013? Really? I don't want to draw too much attention to that one aspect, but it seemed very distasteful and unCommunity-like to me.

And it's not Alf Garnett/David Brent/Alan Partridge? You are meant to laugh at the person making the jokes not the jokes?
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

CrazyFoxMachine

Yeah Season 4 is a mess, with this exception of a funny episode written by Jim Rash and the brilliant Matt Lucas it just tries too hard and squanders a lot of good build-up. The finale was ridiculous, the forced puppet-episode was awful and the awkward attempt to "normalise" Abed with a cringy romance plot was heartbreakingly off-message. Can't wait for its return with Harmon etc - although will miss Donald Glover.

radiator

Everything I've seen of it so far just felt totally, totally 'off'. The big, apparently network-mandated emotional moments felt totally OTT and unearned. Despite what those moronic execs think, Community has always been a show with a big heart, it just did those moments with a bit more humour and subtlety, or subverted them to not let things get too saccharine.

What's very odd is it seems like they deliberately changed the character of Jeff to make him more 'appealing' to a wider audience, then they go and do loads of pandering, fan-service heavy episodes like the cringeworthy Inspector Spacetime convention one that would only be of interest to long-time fans. Feels like a lot of hands pulling in different directions behind the scenes.

Agree about Lucas - it's a shame he didn't get to appear in a better episode. And Rash too, who is always great. I haven't got to his episode yet, but might just skip ahead to that one and have done with it.

Anyway, just started watching Season 1 of Parks and Recreation.

It's pretty good - I like it. Very good cast. Nothing amazing so far, but I've heard it gets better as it goes.

SmallBlueThing

Ages ago I bought the complete 1959-1964 run of The Twilight Zone, off an ebay seller. They've been sitting on the shelf ever since unwatched, other than showing the kids 'The Howling Man' and 'The After-Hours' a couple of Halloweens ago.

This week, I received in the post a couple of early Gold Key Twilight Zone comics- and to my surprise, they were excellent. The Gold Key house format still somewhat puts me off, but the stories were fun and clever, and neither shat on the legacy of the great tv show. Inspired by this, I began to dip into the tv episodes for the first time in a decade, wondering if they were still as good as I remembered. Last night I watched 'An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge' (Civil War soldier escapes a hanging and makes his way home- famously the "last" TZ and the only one they bought in from outside, not producing themselves), 'The Invaders' (In a farmhouse out in the sticks an old woman fights a battle against action-figure-sized robot aliens who land in their tiny flying saucer) and 'Mr Dingle, The Strong' (in which Burgess Meredith is a weakling vacuum cleaner salesman suddenly given the power of a superman by the Best Alien On TV Ever).

Did I worry they wouldn't stand up? Nah, not at all- TZ is the single greatest television show in history. It helped that two of the above episodes mentioned I'd never seen- having somehow missed them during Channel Four's late-night repeats during the early to mid eighties. But Mr Dingle still reduced me to tears- mirth and nostalgia equally. Burgess Meredith, you were as close as this planet ever got to a god walking upon it. Next up: 'Time Enough At Last'.

SBT
.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: SmallBlueThing on 17 November, 2013, 11:28:31 AM
TZ is the single greatest television show in history.


Aye; the variety of stuff is incredible and so many to re-visit in the box-set. I have fond memories of the Channel 4 repeats and ones that stick out are Walking Distance (a weary businessman returns to his childhood town), A Hundred Yards Over the Rim (man from the 1900's wanders into the future and finds medicine for his sick son) , The Lonely (a murderer on a prison-planet falls in love with a female robot), Miniature (A loner (Robert Duvall) falls in love with a doll in a dollhouse) and many, many more. I like the 80's re-boot as well.

TordelBack

It's hard to overstate how great so much of Twilight Zone really was - even in some of its later guises, but especially in the 60's run.  I often find I'm disappointed in so much modern SF/genre TV just because they seem to spread the same number of ideas over an entire season (or several) as TZ managed in an hour, or they just drop the ball in terms of message or resolution in favour of character-focused rmelodrama in a way that TZ seldom did.  Mind you, I feel the same way about SF novels versus short stories. 

Link Prime

The remastered Blu-ray editions of the 60's Twilight Zone released a coupla years ago are some of my my prized discs.
There were so many episodes I'd never seen before, not to mention the high re-watch factor.
Rod Serling...ye were a God among men.

Dandontdare

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 17 November, 2013, 11:48:58 AM
A Hundred Yards Over the Rim (man from the 1900's wanders into the future and finds medicine for his sick son)

Wasn't there a future shock ripped off inspired by that? Except it was a modern traveller who finds a some 19th c pioneers - I remember them calling coke a s'strange nectar' - he gives them some antibiotics (which he just happened to have on him)

Spikes

Indeed. I fancy it was drawn by Redondo, but ive not got my progs at hand...