durdencommatyler wrote:What worries me is that I didn't love the couple of AD episodes I saw.
But I'm dying to give it another shot.
There's some episodes better than others and references and callbacks do accumulate that you wouldn't get the joke without seeing previous ones.
But if you saw the pilot it does a great job of setting the tone and pacing for the series run. I thought it was a good barometer for what was to come.
I'm going to have to avoid this thread after May 25 until I watch all the new ones. Going to be tough to stay away!
I've only seen the Pilot and the banana stand episode. So, the first two episodes of the series (I think). People always make fun of me for saying this (so have it, I'm used to it by now) but when I started watching the show, I was having a particularly rough time in NYC -- specifically rich, self-entitled people. As such, watching a show about obnoxious, rich, self-entitled people made me angry. The show wasn't funny, it was upsetting.
I didn't want to put myself through that. So I stopped watching. However, I do actually own all three season on DVD. Kinda robbed a guy. Kinda.
So, I'll give it another go soon. I want to like it. And I'm not longer in the same head space as before. Perhaps I'll be able to laugh at the stupid, obnoxious, rich, self-entitled people, like I'm supposed to.
durdencommatyler wrote:I was having a particularly rough time in NYC -- specifically rich, self-entitled people. As such, watching a show about obnoxious, rich, self-entitled people made me angry. The show wasn't funny, it was upsetting.
Dear durdencommatyler,
Satire is a comic design intended to provide cathartic emotional release by taking the very things about which we feel impotently frustrated or angry, and reducing them by poking fun.
Also, while I have your attention, Ender's Game is revenge fantasy self-pity porn.
durdencommatyler wrote:Sometimes a chef doesn't want to come home from a 16 hour shift and watch Hell's Kitchen. But thanks for explaining satire to me, anyway.
Dear durdencommatyler,
Analogy is a communicative tool, in which a thing (often a feeling or highly personal experience) is described through the careful use of designed linguistic inference. Although I have not seen the show in question, I am nevertheless experiencing a degree of concern that a chef watching Hell's Kitchen might actually be more akin to a rich idiot watching Arrested Development than to someone who hates rich idiots watching the same.
Also, be reassured that it is unnecessary for you to feel maligned by these posts, as they are merely a measurement of how bored I am at work today. You see, as an office worker who can't stand to watch The Office, I very much understand the sentiment that birthed your initial missive quite well and am, in fact, just entertaining myself by being an asshole.
Also, please have your desk cleaned out and your badge turned in to security before leaving this afternoon.
durdencommatyler wrote:How do you folks think it compares -- in terms of belly laughs, style of humor, consistency -- with something like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Yeah like there's any real comparison between Arrested Development and Always Sunny in Philadelphia! COME ON!!!
"I really enjoy sandwiches but the other guys are so good at making sandwiches that I don't make them. Now I make sandwiches."
durdencommatyler wrote:How do you folks think it compares -- in terms of belly laughs, style of humor, consistency -- with something like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Yeah like there's any real comparison between Arrested Development and Always Sunny in Philadelphia! COME ON!!!
It's like comparing comedic apples, to comedic oranges.
durdencommatyler wrote:How do you folks think it compares -- in terms of belly laughs, style of humor, consistency -- with something like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Yeah like there's any real comparison between Arrested Development and Always Sunny in Philadelphia! COME ON!!!
durdencommatyler wrote:How do you folks think it compares -- in terms of belly laughs, style of humor, consistency -- with something like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Always Sunny, to me, is at its best when it reaches out with the maximum level of absurdity and a totally straight face. The reunion dance, the childlike way Mac stares across the crowded restaurant at Charlie, the policeman's earnest "dude hangs dong," Danny DeVito's epic facial expressions whenever he's waiting through other people's dialog, the Night Man, absolutely everything McPoyle...the more it's willing to reach out into that absurdist ether, the better the show does. When it does disappoint me, it's usually because it created a fantastically ridiculous backdrop and then failing to fully capitalize on the potential (Chardie MacDennis...good, but should have been so much more epic).
The thing about that kind of ridiculous situation/over the top brand of humor...if it's your style, then it's not hard to "get." The jokes are pretty much right in your face. And they do it exceptionally well, on that show, so you're not having to work for anything.
Arrested Development runs with a very different thing....layered jokes that peel back like onions, character-driven humor that embraces subtlety in a way sitcoms never do, jokes that are set up over the course of one or two episodes early in the season, but don't pay off until near the end. It's not as easy to "get," because you aren't likely to catch a lot of it the first episode or so into your exposure. It's also why the series suddenly blew up in the age of streaming video, when people could watch entire seasons at a jaunt, after it flailed about and died thanks to regular television scheduling. You can't watch one episode a week and not miss a shit ton of the best jokes in there.
I'd say Arrested Development is more original, interesting, and intelligent....and Always Sunny is more immediate, episodic, wildly expressive, and just generally "comedy theater" in design. These are pretty much the only comedies that I care to watch, and I love them almost equally, but Arrested just barely gets the edge.
durdencommatyler wrote:How do you folks think it compares -- in terms of belly laughs, style of humor, consistency -- with something like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?
Man I love this show. The scene where Buster has Franklin is great. Also, with him using the doctor dictation as Franklin's voice.
