Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendation Thread

friends is good when it doesn't lean too hard on schwimmer's schwimmer-iness

imagine if netflix got the rights to newsradio and got everyone to watch newsradio instead of friends. mostly i wish newsradio was streaming somewhere.

I wholeheartedly concur even though I own it. My brother just started watching it recently and got hooked. Would that everyone had the easy opportunity to do so.

Primark (uk cheap clothes emporium) is selling F*R*I*E*N*D*S tshirts now and i keep seeing people wearing them, often young kids. it's odd.

xpost a couple of seasons of NewsRadio were on Sony's Crackle service a while back

wrt Friends it's been interesting to see it from today's perspective. Ross is a sociopath.

Matt Leblanc and Lisa Kudrow are excellent comedic actors

Hate to say it but friends is better than newsradio

i am enjoying everyone being "ACTUALLY it's pretty GOOD!" about the most popular sitcom of all time

There are many most popular things that aren't pretty good, so it does seem worthy of note.

yeah, i mean big bang theory is the most watched sitcom of the last decade at least and it's basically unwatchable.

i want to love newsradio - ignoring the forgettable joe rogan and unlikeable andy dick it has a great cast (dave foley is one of my favourite comedic actors ever, what can you say about phil hartman? etc.) - but it's a fair to middling 90s sitcom to my eyes and ears. better than mad about you, not as good as frasier.

NewsRadio is so good, it veers off in such weird directions from it's base standard 90s sitcom setup

Totes bogus take, jim. Totes bogus to the max.

Now I am looking at lists of the most popular, watched, profitable sitcoms of all time, realizing I have never watched a lot of these. Like any Chuck Lorre ones or Modern Family, Raymond, Raymond-like shows. I made fun of my spouse for watching all of Big Bang Theory but supposedly he watched for the caltech adjacent jokes.

Called the "King of Sitcoms" during the 2010s,[4][5][6][7][8] he has created and produced sitcoms including Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly, Mom, and The Kominsky Method.

omg first against the wall

Lorre is only redeemed by having worked on Roseanne.

let's be real, all sitcoms are bad except for the first five seasons of Cheers

I've never been more ashamed of my parents than i was when i realized they habitually watched two and a half men

Wow, Dharma & Greg is a show I have not thought of in years.

Do sitcoms become dated the fastest of any kind of entertainment?

http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/two-and-a-half-men-finale-review.html

i highly recommend reading about what happens in the 2 1/2 men finale

is this seriously what 2 1/2 Men was about??? I kind of want to watch it now if I ever get a bacterial/viral infection in my brain.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/two-and-a-half-men-finale-review.html

i highly recommend reading about what happens in the 2 1/2 men finale

― na (NA), Thursday, June 27, 2019 9:25 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark

holy shit

in fairness to chuck lorre charlie sheen was a real anti-semitic POS to him in public statements at the time he had his little implosion so it's understandable that he was bitter but what a nihilistic finale to a show that ran for 11 years

wrt Friends it's been interesting to see it from today's perspective. Ross is a sociopath.

this is not today's perspective

ross isn't really a sociopath he is just quite typical of the male romantic hero of the 90s - mopey, jealous, sad-case dickhead. it's instructive to remember that while the cast of friends are gen x the creators and writers were more baby boomer, and the social mores and attitudes really reflect that (not that gen x didn't also have a similar tolerance for awfulness in their romantic heroes - see ethan hawke in anything).

Ross was definitely being written as a non-hero and terrible person by the second half of the series, it's just that his friends and family couldn't quietly and slowly ostracise him as they might in real life bcz the actor was still one of six leads

dude pursued and dated one of his underage students

I was just gonna say, I hate Chuck Lorre and think 2 and a half men and Big Bang are the worst things in the world...but I always thought Dharma and Greg was decent.

hard disagree

Xps to yerac: I’m from nz and used to get ppl yelling BRITT! BRITT! at me (it was the hey day of flight of the conchords) - at that point I hadn’t even seen the show.

My neighbor's 16 year old daughter carved the Friends logo into a pumpkin for Halloween, and she and her crew dressed up as the characters from the show. Separately another friend's daughter had a big banner made up for their 16th birthday in Friends logo font that spelled out "The one where X turns 16".

It's fucking weird, I never really watched it and had sort of forgot about it and had no idea kids these days etc.

My gf's niece is on the same trip (somewhat recently binged the series, had some hs graduation thing similarly themed 'The One Where...'). I guess it's weird but then I guess it's also like that thing where I was thrilled to inherit my mom's Monkees records ca. '87.

i was finding the zoomer love for the office kind of weird recently until i remember i love the show cheers which started 2 years before i was born and ended when i was 8

This looks terrifying:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1JdWOqc9Q8

so many people my age love cheers xp

and i assume i would too

cheers has a lot of timeless elements, like talking to people at a bar

the sexual politics of cheers are pretty of their time. like my woke gf won't watch it with me

but there's a lot to love about it (i kind of get off the bus after diane leaves)

that's maybe fair? I feel like a lot of the interactions would play out differently in 2019 and the different aspects of feminism you get from Diane/Lilith/Rebecca have modern analogues but the portrayals and outcomes would have to play differently

early seasons Sam's a womanizer of the type that doesn't play well in that there are occasional "women are crazy" tropes when obviously he's treated women badly or led them on only to ghost

Norm's boilerplate wife jokes are buffered by the fact that he obviously really loves her and doesn't really take it when other people say things about her, iirc

yeah lots of:

Sam: women are crazy, Diane.
Diane: You're a pig, Sam Malone!

Friends debuted 25 years ago. When Friends debuted, The Brady Bunch had debuted 25 years before.

The Brady Bunch was similarly a "thing" with my generation I guess.

yeah Norm's zings on Vera are a performative mask for self-loathing

and Sam's sluttiness was played as a non-positive more often than not

the sexual politics of cheers are pretty of their time. like my woke gf won't watch it with me

hard disagree. it's remarkably progressive for 1983.

"progressive for 1983" is still timely

(Sam's ability at conquest is only acclaimed as admirable by a) unfuckable losers who say in as many words that they do so because they're living vicariously through him, and b) Carla, who is universally sex-positive, but also lives vicariously because the expresssion of her own positivity has been drastically curtailed by her extreme fecundity)

shhh y'all are making me want to get into cheers

sic otm

the most problematic aspect of it is Sam and Diane's relationship, and on last viewing I thought the way that played out was actually better than I had remembered it. See the Cheers poll thread I guess.

Brad, do it!

I remember Cheers being soooo good but I haven't seen an episode in over 1-2 decades.

for ex., in the *third* episode of the show there's a subplot about a patron who's confused about what to do about his son's interracial relationship which also turns out to be a homosexual one (this reveal is played as a joke on Coach, who is of course initially confused). But the way its resolved is with the dad spontaneously coming to the conclusion that he must accept his son as he is because he loves him and wants him in his life. This is not how the vast majority of other 80s sitcoms would have handled that setup.

plus it's funny! The writing is filled with tons of great throwaway lines/gags