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Balls you are good at writing about tv

watching the last community, I kinda wonder if this show is just flying through the simpsons quality arc in lightspeed. "hey, we're a great show...woah, it was fun breaking that rule...HEY, THERE ARE NO RULES WE ARE COMEDY GODS...wait what was our thing again?...hello, new showrunner"

granted, simpsons had a bunch of different showrunners in its heyday, but if harmon really is on the outs I'll pleasantly surprised if s4 doesn't get mike scully-ish

the thing with himym is, i wanted to like it. i like the central concept, the shaggy-dog-story approach, the flashbacks, etc. but i find the characters limp and vile. its funny that there's so much "these characters are horrendous" stuff on the girls thread; i think that show's pretty adept at telegraphing that it thinks, say, the weird booty-call guy and the art museum girl always ragging on her drip-boyfriend are pretty unsympathetic, yet it still gives them a depth that keeps them somewhat compelling. but there's something cold and cynical about himym's characters, and both barney and the main character's poon-hound instincts don't ring true - like, they're out to bed women but not out of any particular joy of conquest, but in a notch-on-the-bedpost way. like in the one where the main guy is sleeping with the cobie smulders character but not in a relationship kind of way, and he keeps boasting about it to barney, who's dying inside because he's secretly i love with her... he keeps going about how often he's boning her, but it just sounds empty and joyless. and maybe that's the point, but i can't really give a shit about those characters, and when stuff happens like the jason segal character thinking his buddy might by in gay-love with him because they had brunch together and saw mamma mia, it just seems so vanilla and small-minded. in the UK, channel 4 has blatantly tried to market it as the next Friends but, say what you like about that show, it was pretty good at giving its characters depth and charisma, at least for the first couple of seasons. the moment when rachel kisses ross after watching the video of their prom night is prime rom-com material imho, and i can't imagine himym ever pulling off a moment like that. the big bang cast do great stuff with tepid material though.
you're dead right about cheers being on the button from day one - the pilot episode is like a masterclass in subtle and entertaining exposition, in how it introduces the characters. there's some real clunkers in that first season, though, and for me the show hits its peak in the intensity of sam & diane's relationship - the moment when she slaps him and he slaps her back is electrifying - and i think frasier really sets the show alight (though his own sitcom soon devolved to tiresome french farce imho). i don't know, i'll fuck with all eleven seasons of cheers tbh, i can't think of a sitcom that developed its characters so well, and stayed so sharp for eleven seasons. rebecca doesn't quite work at first, but the minute she's revealed to be as damaged and broken as the rest of the show's characters, she becomes awesomely entertaining.
that's all ot, obv. community rules though.

maybe with the girls characters, its not that they have a depth, but the show has more of a remove from them than himym. we're not supposed to think its characters are likeable, necessarily - though they aren't irredeemable, as the scene with the dancing to the robyn shows - but himym seems to genuinely think ted (that's his name, ted; such a non-character) are Likeable And Charismatic Characters We Will Identify With, and i think that it fails at this really badly. it also has a tendency to be mawkishly shallow and clumsy a la Scrubs when it tries to play for Serious Moments.

Ted has about as much actual likability and depth as Harry Potter

Ted has always been the weakest link.

Seinfeld was basically an insane show, like I saw some of the arc where susan dies from licking envelelops and no one cares, just remarkably brutal

Community is tame by comparison

Well, the Seinfeld people had the motto "no hugging, no learning", right? A big part of Community's appeal is that it is basically the opposite of this. Community's strangeness is of an entirely different sort (and, yes, The Simpsons is a good comparison).

who's the strongest one, though? jason segal is a likeable enough chump, i guess. that's pretty weak sauce though.

(xp)

I think you will find that there's not a lot of Ted love even among fans of HIMYM. He's a pretty universally-acknowledged drip. And I definitely have some reservations about Barney but mostly to the extent that the character's loveable presentation might validate any real-life PUA creepers. But that's a risk you take anytime you present a creep as a sympathetic protagonist in fiction.

I kind of like Ted! Maybe I am also a pretentious saddo douche! His random hookups are supposed to feel empty and joyless. That's the point: he's killing time, trying to fill a void while he's desperately searching for the one (who, until now, was Robin in his heart). With Barney, there definitely was a joy of conquest imo: see all the bizarre challenges he tries out (e.g. convincing a girl that she needs to sleep with him in order to avoid a climate change catastrophe 40 years in the future), his black book and bro code, etc. This has faded though. There was also always an element of desperation to his character too.

(xposts)

Well, yeah, Barney is genuinely evil.

Also, Jason Segal's character is not supposed to be sophisticated and broad-minded! He is a superstitious Midwestern rube.

true, but i think the thing w/barney is that he *isn't partic sympathetic: he's priapist-as-one-note-joke, like the doctor in scrubs who never met a dick joke he couldn't drop into inappropriate conversation.

okay i need to stop ragging himym, this is the thread for gr80 and whiney to high-five as shows that commit the unforgivable sin of being liked by ilx's cornier fux have their future's threatened.

xp segal's quite likeable playing that character, i don't disagree. i think his wife is appallingly irritating though.

I think Lily's a pretty strong character.

Ha xpost I actually like her much more on this than on Buffy.

maybe i'm being harsh on her, have only watched a few himyms tbh, as the show really grates on me, and maybe she charms over time.

(Marshall is a Midwestern rube who also graduated from Columbia's law school, mind you.)

Really, HIMYM is another show like Community that I like a lot but which seems like it would have little-to-no appeal to a casual viewer.

With, y'know, jokes that pay off two years after the fact and whatnot.

i think the only characters i like on himym are robin and marshall. i like segal, smulders, and obv nph. i've kinda turned on allyson hannigan, though it's probably just due to awful writing. still agree w/ this ruling mind you: http://www.theonion.com/video/fcc-okays-nudity-on-tv-if-its-alyson-hannigan,14215/

i still watch HIMYM out of residual loyalty as well, but at the top of its game i would put it up against most sitcoms easily

i feel like there was a turning point w/hannigan where they just kinda turned her into a nagging meme machine, i don't put that on her though

HIMYM doesn't really get enough credit for being consistently playful and inventive with odd running jokes and storytelling devices and meme-y things that lead to offscreen websites etc. which i get, because it's also a laugh track show with some very well trodden young-folx-in-love-in-NYC themes, but still. also don't really understand people's beefs with the character, which seem to rest on the assumption that half the audience is sitting there going "YEAH dude I AM TED"

with the characterS

I should also note that most of my distaste towards Ted is residual distaste towards season 1 Ted, who was (largely intentionally) pathetic. He's eased up a ton since then.

30 rock seems like a much more clear parallel to the simpsons that any of nbc's other thursday night sitcoms, both in its progression as a show and in its joke style

himym is unbearable now, so bad im not really even sure i can tease out exactly what makes it bad -- that being said the first 3-4 seasons i found to be as good as any sitcom out there, and at least as daring as community, just in less obvious ways.

i still don't feel like the simpsons is a good comparison for any of these shows because it's animated, which gives it a lot more leeway in being "unrealistic" and it because it's been on for like 20 years we're forgetting how gradual that change was from slightly edgy to LISA NEEDS BRACES to the hot mess it is now

with HIMYM they go back and forth with ted going from tolerable to horribly annoying, it's just really hard to maintain this sympathy for him that show expects you to. i mean, it tells you bad it is when it's often easier to sympathize with Barney, who is pretty much a sociopath slowly becoming human(?), than Ted, who's a mostly genuine dude but not as openly self-centered as Barney

but yeah, feels like HIMYM swung from being unwatched to moderately successful and back to underrated in recent years, mostly because the last few seasons have dragged like The Office does now. i'm not looking forward to the next TWO seasons (sigh) but i guess i'll watch them anyway

but Marshall and Robin never lost a step IMO

One of my quibbles with HIMYM is its persistent homophobia tbh.

mostly because the last few seasons have dragged like The Office does now - let's not get carried away here

this past season of the office has been like this past colts season where sure you could've seen a dip coming w/o their main guy but WOW

One of my quibbles with HIMYM is its persistent homophobia tbh.

― raw feel vegan (silby), Saturday, May 12, 2012 4:26 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

idgi

if silby is referring to himym creators squeamish and persistent refusal to let smulders and hannigan lez up i totally agree

maybe they'll wait til the last episode like they did with Scrubs

Yeeaaaaahhhh, the 'homophobia' distaste baffles me a bit. Might need you to unpack that one.

Also just generally baffled by people who think HIMYM has gone severely downhill. Its peaks and troughs have been barely perceptible (and I've seen the entire series, like, twice through at this point, so it isn't just that I'm misremembering). Assuming they were ever onboard, I'd have to assume that people's current distaste is more about them outgrowing the show and/or its intentions.

hey, whether the show started wheel-spinning or i just got tired of its "hey remember that heretofore unacknowledged cute name we have for something" quirks, I knew there were plenty of other viewers in the sea when I dumped it, and I don't appreciate the implication that I never really loved it in the first place.

Maybe "homophobia" is overstating the case but HIMYM (like, to be fair, 90% of everything) takes a really stereotyped, easy, lazy approach to queer characters and queer-related humor. Which I find particularly annoying or distasteful when the rest of the show is significantly smarter. Eg. the stereotypical gay folks who acquired Lily's painting for the frame. That's the main instance I remember.

so yes apologies for ruffliing feathers by alleging homophobia. Really it's just depressing laziness.

I'm scanning through, croupier, but I can't for the life of me figure out who or what you're responding to.

Also: yeah, silby, while it's very likely that we'll look back at recent progamming's treatment of homosexuality with the same pained expression that is currently induced by some of the casually insensitive-to-offensive representations of race (and women and rape and, yes, homosexuality) from the '60s-'80s, in this case it's probably more that sensitive portrayals of homosexuality probably aren't at the forefront of a creative team who work for an almost 100% heteronormative show (and, yes, laziness).

I'd also think NPH would veto anything outright insensitive, really.

it's probably more that sensitive portrayals of homosexuality probably aren't at the forefront of a creative team who work for an almost 100% heteronormative show (and, yes, laziness).

yeah, that's true, but that doesn't make it any more watchable. the gay-panic of the episode i mentioned earlier left a bad taste in the mouth.

what are you guys talking about? did nph bash some gays?

I'm scanning through, croupier, but I can't for the life of me figure out who or what you're responding to.

you just sounded like you were defending a dumpee more than a tv show - it's not the show, it's the viewers that changed, assuming they were ever really on board. i think it's actually a pretty valid metaphor, as some people commit to shows for their natural life, and others play the field (which isn't to say they cut and run!)

And it is valid. I'm not condemning anyone for moving on, and if it makes it easier for those who've moved on to go on about how HIMYM started letting itself go or made blatant attempts to attract a newer, younger demographic, well...that's all just part of the healing process.

Barney's brother is a happily successful gay man fwiw.. Larger character than frame buyers at least.

Ohhhh, yeaaaahh. I was trying to remember if there was a recurring LGBT character (besides Lily) and I came up short. Yeah, he's portrayed totally sympathetically. Like a non-damaged, gay Barney (or a black NPH).

Also just generally baffled by people who think HIMYM has gone severely downhill. Its peaks and troughs have been barely perceptible (and I've seen the entire series, like, twice through at this point, so it isn't just that I'm misremembering).

yeah same here, imo show has had a mild inevitable slide in overall quality over the years but not as much as most shows that last 7+ seasons.

I was trying to remember if there was a recurring LGBT character (besides Lily) and I came up short. Yeah, he's portrayed totally sympathetically.

This is what I don't get. I would have thought HIMYM is better than most shows, e.g. Modern Family in terms of its portrayal of queer characters. And yeah, Lily's bisexuality has come up several times.

I'm generally on Deric's and some dude's side wrt the quality of this show but the last few episodes have been making me wonder. I'm not sure how I feel about the whole Barney-Quinn thing. And I think it was actually a good decision for Ted to avoid Robin at this point! I was really disappointed when his recent revelation was that he should in fact reignite a close friendship with someone he had been love with for years and who had just recently rejected him.